Dystopian Story of Lovers
by Murasaki K
Summary: Answering the challenge from Bubbles in a single spark site Sesshoumaru lost his mate Kameko five hundred years ago, before she died she made him promise that he must love another after her death, but he was reluctant to keep his vow until he met Kagome
1. Not Quite Bronte

(Answering the challenge from Bubbles on a single spark site) Sesshoumaru lost his mate Kameko five hundred years ago. Before she died, she made him promise that he must love another after her death, but he was reluctant to keep his vow until he met Kagome who looked similar to his deceased mate.

_**Dystopian Story of Lovers **_

**Not Quite Bronte**

**&.Disclaimer: I don't own Inuyasha.&**

**OoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoO**

"Sesshoumaru-sama, you can't go inside. There's nothing you can do now. Let her rest in peace." The monk gently ushered him away from the chamber.

"She wants me. She wants to be with me." Sesshoumaru half-pleaded with the monk.

"We had done everything we could. Every ritual ceremony was performed to call her soul back, but we had failed. Even if you see her now, she would not be able to respond to you. This would only add to your pain, milord."

"Her time belongs with me! And you will not hinder me from going into that room if you treasure your life, monk!" Sesshoumaru pushed him out of the way and barged into the chamber, ripping the shoji door apart.

He stopped before her. Suddenly his knees went weak, and he slid down to the floor, burying his face in her hand. "Kameko …" with one last whisper he succumbed into the transitory blackness of exhaustion.

**OoOoO**

Sesshoumaru woke up to the cool touch upon his head. He caught the hand desperately and brought it to his lips. "Kameko! You've finally woken up! Don't scare me like that ever again!"

She smiled weakly at him. "So, you love me now, don't you?"

Sesshoumaru chuckled. "You always have a strange sense of humor."

"I'm so tired, Sesshoumaru. I won't be able to keep my eyes open for long," she murmured weakly.

"Ssshhh … don't talk. Save up your strength. Just stay with me, Kameko, and everything will be alright." He stroked the side of his wife's cheek.

"No, before I go …" She frowned as spasm of pain ran through her body. "There are so many things that I want to see for the last time. So many things I want to do."

"Don't talk nonsense! You're not going anywhere! The monks have prayed for you for thirty days, asking for your soul to return to your body, and drove away the evil spirit that possessed you. Now you are healed, my love, not entirely well, but you're back to life."

She smiled gently at him. "You don't understand, do you? It's not them who brought my soul back into my body. It was me. I was not ready, and when I heard you calling me, I knew why I was not ready. But now my time has come, Sesshoumaru. Don't deny this. You can't control what happens in life."

He opened his mouth and was about to object her when she put a finger to his lips to silence him.

"The sunset… I want to see it for the last time."

He carried her to the front door of the chamber that adjoined the room to the garden. He settled himself down on the floor, holding her in his arm.

"Sesshoumaru …"

He kissed her brow to tell her that he was listening.

"I'm sorry I couldn't give you any heir." She sobbed. "I'm sorry that I was so weak, and I'm sorry that I have to leave you on your own." Her sob grew stronger until Sesshoumaru thought that his heart would break just from hearing the heart-wrenching sound.

"Then don't … Don't leave me, Kameko …" He croaked. With every second that passed he could feel the life that was slowly slipping away from the grasp of her little body.

"Will you eat well after I'm gone?" She asked him out of the blue.

Sesshoumaru smiled sadly. "To trust you asking me questions like that in a time like this. Kameko, if you leave me now, I will never laugh or even smile again for the rest of my life."

"No, Sesshoumaru." Tears began to flow strongly from her eyes now. "I was serious! Will you take good care of yourself after I'm gone? Will you eat well and regularly? Will you take enough rest at night? Answer me, please …" she asked desperately.

He nodded silently.

"And after I'm gone, I want you to find someone. Someone strong and healthy, not like me. She must be beautiful, so that she would be able to compete with your good looks." The little woman smiled up teasingly at him. "She must be able to take a good care of you and to sense your mood. She must be able to make you smile, but she mustn't —" She paused. Her hand went up to caress the stripes on his cheek.

"She shouldn't be able to make you laugh because I'm the only one who can…"

"Kameko …"

"You see; even though I'm willing to let you love another, I'm still a jealous woman. I wouldn't want to share this with anyone else because you laugh only for me."

"How could you ask me to promise you something like that? How could I love someone else but you?" He asked her with a strangled voice. Choking a sob, he questioned her weakly. "How could I love when you're going to take my heart with you?"

"Sesshoumaru …" She buried her face in his chest. He could feel the hot wetness of her tears scorching his chest, burning him through and through.

"Forgive me, Sesshoumaru. I was selfish. But I just want you to be happy, happy in life without me. I love you so much that I'm willing to share your soul with someone else, and if you're not going to be happy when I'm gone, then …"

"Then we might never meet again," she continued in a fearful voice, "It's a sin to waste your life. The gods might punish you by never allowing us to reunite with each other again." Even in the verge of her death she was still superstitious, but he knew why she still clung to that fallacy; because she was afraid, afraid to take the risk not to believe.

"We are the immortals, Kameko. We are the gods of our own fates. The higher power had long given up on us, too jealous of our beauty." He faked an arrogant expression on his face, and when she shrieked softly in fear, he chuckled and pulled her head softly to his chest.

"Don't, Sesshoumaru," her voice was muffled in his embrace, "It's blasphemy and it frightens me."

He whispered in an agonized tone, "Don't be, Kameko. There's nothing out there. There is no fear nor pain nor sorrow …"

"No fear nor pain nor sorrow …" she whispered in wonder.

"Say: 'I promise' Sesshoumaru," she ordered.

"I promise. I promise I will take good care of myself. I promise I won't scorn my life without you." He replied ceremoniously.

"And …" She waited for him to finish his promise.

"I will live, Kameko. That should be enough." He answered her coldly.

"You will live and love." She nodded to herself as if he had already given her the sufficient promise.

The sun slowly went down, and the darkness that was approaching slowly and hesitantly began blanketing the sky with its dusk. Only dim ray of light reached them now, and at a distant space a star was dying away.

"I've loved you," she said, "I've loved you even before you were conceived. Ever since I laid my eyes on you, I bequeathed every belief of faith they had taught me. Gods help me, because I made you my god." And then she closed her eyes, breathing out the last gust of the borrowed existence.

And everything that was worldly was only her cold shell, but compared to the wintriness in his heart, it was merely a transitory breeze.

**OoOoO**

How was one to act that he was supposed to enjoy life? He ate regularly and decently despite the sense of dullness in his gut. He slept when the time indicated the beginning of the resting schedule. He did not feel hunger or the need for slumber within him. Because time passed, and if apathy was the sign of life then he would be very much alive in this case.

Time passed, and in every second of it Sesshoumaru was tempted to break his promise. He was tempted not to live.

Time passed, and the world moved on. Sometimes it altered or it stopped altogether, swinging backwards, or in the process of rotating, and life went on.

Time passed, but he just couldn't see why life went on. Why the world had not care when it had lost one of its children. And why could everyone else laugh when he could not? He thought that everyone else had forgotten her. But he was wrong. He had in reality forgotten anyone else but her. So he began to distrust the world and its inhabitants. He was furious against the world.

Time passed, and he resented the fact that he was immortal, watching jealously the mortals as they died, left the world, and, in his belief, were reborn. He was infuriated and jealous.

**OoOoO**

500 years in the future

Kagome didn't know why she always felt cold. Even though she wore thick clothes and ate a lot, she always felt cold.

She finished her breakfast hurriedly and gathered the dirty dishes on the table. She put the dishes in the little dishwasher she bought just a year ago and regulated the time for its washing schedule.

She went to her room and began to prepare herself for her first day of work. As she was putting on her make-up, she wondered what was to be expected today in her first day. Then she smiled a little. What right did she have to be expectant at all? People like her, who grew up alone in this world, belonged to the small community where they had to satisfy themselves with all the little things in the world, all they could get from life, which were mostly things that others didn't want.

Kagome was an orphan. When she was a week old, her birthmother left her behind in a hospital. All her life she was alone, living her life with no great expectance at all.

After she graduated from the business school, she was then fortunate enough to get a job as the executive secretary of the president director in a renowned company called Crestant Inc. The interview for the job application went surprisingly well despite the fact that she had no experience at all in this branch.

She opened her closet to examine her clothes. She had to admit that the content of her closet was meager. She hardly could find an outfit, having mostly only one-pieces of clothing. She pulled out a dark blue shirt dress that fit perfectly well to her body. The collar of the dress gave her a more formal impression, an appropriate impression for her job. She pulled her wavy, black hair into a low chignon at her neck, smoothed her pony to the side, and pinned it to place. She chose a lovely pair of tiny earrings with dark blue stone that accentuated the aquamarine color of her eyes to wear. Finally she put on her small, black leather-belted wristwatch, grabbed her dark grey tote bag, and made her way to the door. After slipping into her pumps and coat, she opened the door of her apartment and breathed in the fresh morning air.

**OoOoO**

When Kagome arrived at the Crestant tower, she was one hour too early before the work schedule, so she decided to wait at the lobby and read some magazines until she spotted some familiar faces to accompany her to the office.

The moment she buried her face in a magazine, a beautiful man in a dark suit entered the building. Walking straight to the hallway leading towards the elevators, he spared the vicinity none of his precious glances. His face held the expression of hostility and arrogance. He pushed the buttons of the lifts and was about to step inside the cabin when he suddenly caught a whiff of a scent that forever imprinted in his mind. It might not be the most fragrant scent or a unique one in the world, but it was the scent that he treasured the most.

He gripped the door of the lift hard to keep it from closing, and that was when he caught his image in the mirror in front of him. On his cheeks the stripes reappeared; his ears were now pointy; his eyelids red, and the color of his eyes turned into amber.

Sesshoumaru tried to control the youkai in him and chanted a quick incantation to hide his youkai traits. When the concealing spell was finally renewed, he stepped out of the lift-cabin and sought out the source of the scent.

He caught a glimpse of her face. The only thing that crossed through his mind was the fact that she looked cold.

**o**

**o**

**o**

**o**

**o**

**+end of the chapter+**

**o**

**o**

AN: this is a fiction answering the challenge in a single spark posted by Bubbles (2005-04-02). I hope I'm not disappointing her. Before you read any further I'm going to warn you that this fiction is going to be sad, and Kagome would have to go through the same identity crisis like the one she went through with Inuyasha, but there will be no undead corpse haunting Sesshoumaru down in this fiction. I hope you'll give it a try and be so kind to give me feedbacks. Thanks guys!


	2. Doppelganger

**Doppelganger**

**&.Disclaimer: I don't own Inuyasha.&**

**OoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoO**

For the first time in his life Sesshoumaru felt unsure of himself. His feelings were going haywire, and the worst part resulting of it was that his knees started to weaken. His hand was desperately trying to grip at something solid, which actually wasn't, so he fell down hard, making a loud cracking sound while he was holding a minimalist style of vase and its fragile holder.

Kagome immediately looked up. She scanned her surrounding hastily to find the cause of the racket. Before she had the chance to look closely, someone put himself in her line of vision.

"Miss Higurashi? Hello, how do you do? Remember me? Inoue Inuyasha, I'm the one who interviewed you for the job."

Kagome could only look at him blankly. And when he reached out his hand to her to greet her, she broke out of her trance and took his hand hastily, shook it almost with force.

"Yes, of course, how do you do? You have to excuse me; for just a moment ago I thought I heard a crashing noise." Kagome replied nervously.

"Oh, did you?" Inuyasha looked around impassively and then set his gaze back on her. "I didn't hear anything. I'm sure it's nothing. We have some reconstruction's work in the left wing of this building. Perhaps you just heard some little accident from back there." Inuyasha still held her hand, and seeing that he was not going to release it anytime in that moment, Kagome pulled herself up from the sofa.

When she stood up, her height only reached until his chest. She had to tilt her head up in order to look at him. And when their gazes met, she was startled to find his intent searching stare upon her face. Instinctively she brushed the corner of her lips lightly, afraid that there might be something on her face. Inuyasha smiled warmly at her and squeezed her hand tightly. Leading the way to the lift, he still kept her hand in his.

Somehow she felt suffocated and had to pull her hand away from his grasp. He stopped and stared at her in surprise.

"Excuse me, it kinda hurt," she lied.

"You have cold hands," Inuyasha replied.

"It's —" she didn't know what to reply. "I like it when it's cool." Kagome mentally smacked her head. The whole foreignness of the situation seemed to affect her brain and not to mention her mental state.

"I see," Inuyasha commented with an amused glint in his eyes, "We could work something out for that."

"Mr. Inoue—"

"Inuyasha," he cut her off.

"Inuyasha, are you the person I'm supposed to work under?"

Inuyasha smiled for a moment. He was wondering if he should point out the innuendo of the statement, but seeing her big lucent eyes staring innocently at him, he decided not to.

"Far better, you get to work with the owner's successor of this company, but I must warn you. His personality is flawless," Inuyasha said with an ironic accent in his voice.

"Oh?" Kagome was slightly surprised. What kind of warning was that? "But isn't that a good thing?"

They were entering the lift-cabin, and Inuyasha threw a quick glance, checking if his brother had recovered from his stupor. He grinned when he saw him nowhere to be found.

"It's a good thing when you're a heart donor," he whispered under his breath.

"Sorry, I didn't quite catch that."

"Nothing. Maybe you're right. It must be a good thing."

**OoOoO**

After his absolutely embarrassing, debutante-like performance, Sesshoumaru went and hid for quite some time in the restroom. He looked at the vase and the thin triangular table he held in his hand. In his eyes the confusion was still very much apparent. He had caught a whiff of scent, and then he saw her face. And the world seemed to whirl in blackness.

"Kameko …" Sesshoumaru whispered in agonized tone.

How could one resemble another in such perfection?

**OoOoO**

"So, you're sure you can find your way in this building, Kagome?"

"Yes, Inuyasha, I'm sure I can. I mean after we stopped through the entire forty stocks, and after you explain to me even the department that actually has nothing to do with the department I'll be working in, I'm pretty sure I will never be lost in this building," she answered him in a hidden sarcasm.

Inuyasha grinned. "I'm glad you enjoyed the excursion. Now to meet his Excellence …" He knocked at a door and stepped inside without waiting any consent.

"Hello, Big Brother. Kagome, I would like to introduce you to Inoue Sesshoumaru, the president director of this Incorporation, and you will be working for him. Sesshoumaru, this is Higurashi Kagome, your new secretary."

"How do you do, Mr. Inoue, Sir?"

Sesshoumaru nodded briefly, but he refused to raise his head to look at her. For a moment Kagome seemed baffled by his rudeness, but she decided to dismiss it and didn't think much of it.

"Now what do you think of your young secretary?" Inuyasha smirked as he gripped Kagome's hand, and he watched as Sesshoumaru, as if intoxicated, followed the motion of his hand.

"She's stunning, isn't she? Just fresh out of the business school, she'll bring a new wind in this antiquated shed." Inuyasha was still watching him intensely. All the while he was smiling that annoying smile of his.

Kagome still held her head down. She was too confused and embarrassed to hear the playful banter of the man who had interviewed her for the job.

"Aren't you going to say something?" Inuyasha asked him, almost pushing him over the edge. He then dragged Kagome forward, putting her in Sesshoumaru's vision. "Come on, you're making your secretary nervous. I'm sure she would love to hear you complimenting her on her choice of wardrobe. Is it formal enough for you, Sesshoumaru? Before I hired her, I mentioned that you would like your employee to dress appropriately and formally. Aren't you going to compliment her now?"

"Inuyasha! That's quite enough. I want you to escort Miss Higurashi to her desk and explain to her all that she needs to know." Sesshoumaru warned him coldly.

Inuyasha nodded mockingly. With his hand still on Kagome's he led her almost roughly to the door, but before he stepped out, he spun around to face his brother again.

"Don't you think she's stunning, Sesshoumaru? I mean, you must have. Before you even meet her, you must have thought that her face is beautiful, am I right?"

Sesshoumaru froze while Kagome was looking at him then at Inuyasha, confused. But the hanyou only winked at her and squeezed her hand slightly.

"Inuyasha." Sesshoumaru called out to him.

"Refrain yourself from calling me brother ever again. Blood line isn't based on illegitimacy."

Inuyasha immediately hardened, but he nodded briefly and left the room.

**OoOoO**

The morning after the peculiar introduction went in fact somewhat well for Kagome. She found it actually pretty relieving that her boss hadn't once called her to give her any tasks. A bit odd, but still who was she to complain.

The following afternoon had actually promised to be peaceful as well until Suzuki Kagura, the executive manager, decided to pay Sesshoumaru a visit. She didn't bother to gaze her way when she ordered Kagome to bring two cups of coffee into the room, and she just barged into Sesshoumaru's office without even asking her, the secretary, if he was free.

The lady was beautiful, Kagome had to admit. She was stylish and fairly tall, and she moved elegantly like a catwalk model.

Kagome knocked at the door to bring the coffee inside, and instantly both went quiet when she was in the room. The arrogant EM was about to drink from her cup when she suddenly caught a glimpse of Kagome's face, and she dropped the cup as if the coffee was searing hot.

Kagome immediately went down on her knees to clean up the mess, but she was shocked to find Sesshoumaru suddenly grasping her arm, pulling her up. Then he pushed her away while he told her brusquely to call for the cleaning service.

After the incident, Suzuki Kagura exited Sesshoumaru's office and stopped before her desk. She watched Kagome with a mixture of hate and suspicion, and then she left without saying anything at all.

When it was time to have lunch, Kagome went down to seek for a place to eat alone. As she was making her way to exit the building, she could feel eyes that were watching her, probing and full of suspicion. As she was lining up to buy a cup-ramen from a vending machine, suddenly the line in front of her parted, making a room for her. She wanted to ask them if the vending machine was broken, but they left hurriedly as if afraid that she was going to speak to them. The machine was not broken. She bought a cup of ramen and went out of the building.

Outside the building she sat down on a bench and began to stir her ramen.

"Instant noodles are not good for you." Inuyasha dropped a bento box on her lap. "You like sushi, I hope." He sat down next to her and took her ramen from her hands. He started slurping it heartily.

Kagome was silent for a moment, and then she shrugged and opened the bento. "If you wanted the ramen, you could've told me so."

Inuyasha grinned and took one of the sushi from the box. Kagome gave him a look of annoyance that made him pop the sushi innocently into his mouth, taunting her.

"You don't like sharing?" Inuyasha asked her teasingly.

"It's impolite to take someone's food from their plate," Kagome commented reservedly.

"It's not a plate." He answered her grinningly.

Kagome closed the box shut and put it down on the bench with force. She left the place hastily with a frown on her face.

"Wait! Look, I was only teasing you. You can't just leave without having anything to eat. Come on, I'll buy you lunch." He hastened to catch up to her and grasped her hand.

Kagome spun around abruptly and gazed at him with fiery eyes. She pulled her hand away and rubbed it reflexively. "What is it with you and my hand?"

She started to leave, but then she changed her mind as she turned to face him again. "What kind of game are you playing, Mr. Inoue? Ever since this morning people around me acted strange and so did my boss. For what reason did you hire me? I have no references, no experience at all; in spite of all that, you've given me this position that normally required experienced professionalism. Why? What could you possibly want from me?" She half-screamed at him. Tears of distress were threatening to spill, but she refused to shed them as she brushed them away from her eyes almost furiously.

And suddenly Inuyasha felt awful. He had wanted only to get even with Sesshoumaru, but out of inexplicable reason he felt guilty hurting her when he barely knew her. Maybe it was because the way she shivered out of cold this morning in the lobby, or the way her pale, beautiful face seemed so jaded, detached from any emotion, empty without any expectation. It was as if she was waiting for someone to light up that spark in her eyes that made her beautiful countenance more heartbreakingly stunning than before.

But who was he to fool himself? It was because she was enticingly beautiful when she was angry, and attractiveness always held a great importance for him. He didn't like to make a pretty girl cry. As selfish and chauvinistic as he was, a part of him that was gallantly brought up was stating its disapproval.

"I assured you, Miss Higurashi. I'm not playing any games. It's true that you didn't have the required references when I hired you, but I trusted my instinct and decided to give you a chance." He reasoned his case smoothly. The lawyer in him won.

"Oh…." Kagome was speechless for a moment. Her face crimsoned immediately. "You must think of me ungrateful to pull a scene like that." She stuttered softly. For a moment Inuyasha was captured by her enchanting demeanor.

"No, not at all. I know that working with Sesshoumaru is not always easy."

"No, that was not what I meant, Mr —" Inuyasha cleared his throat, reminding her to call him by his name again.

"I mean Inuyasha. Mr. Inoue Sesshoumaru was as correct as any boss can be. It's just that the situation in the office was somewhat foreign. Maybe I just need some time to adapt myself to this whole new environment."

Inuyasha nodded smilingly. Feeling she had sorted everything out, Kagome walked ahead of him. Suddenly Inuyasha called out to her, pulling her into a halt.

"Kagome, why do you seem unhappy?" Putting himself in front of her, he held her upper arm.

Kagome's eyes dropped down to watch where his hand touched her.

"Sorry." Inuyasha immediately released her arm.

"I'm not used to this," She whispered softly.

"Excuse me?" Inuyasha heard her, but he couldn't make out what she was trying to tell him.

"Eating together, socializing, my hands to be held, acting so informally with each other; I'm just— I'm just not an outgoing person. It makes me uncomfortable. Even though I feel indebted to you—"

"Don't be," Inuyasha cut her off impatiently, "I'm not doing this to expect a reward."

"That's not what I meant."

"Then what did you actually mean?"

"I like to keep things professional."

Inuyasha blinked. "Are you trying to say that I was trying to hit on you, that I hired you, so that I can go out with you?" He snorted. "Yes, I do think that you're very attractive, but I already have a girlfriend, well almost a fiancée actually, and I'm not the cheating type."

"You don't understand!" Kagome replied exasperatedly. "I don't like to be friendly with anyone. It puts me in the position to do something for them."

Inuyasha was taken aback. He never thought that she would come up with something like that. As he watched her walk away, he realized that there was something about Higurashi Kagome who didn't like to befriend him.

**OoOoO**

"You're late," Sesshoumaru commented coldly.

"I'm sorry, Mr. Inoue, Sir, but I was—"

"I don't know what the regulation was in your previous workplace, Miss Higurashi, but here we don't spend three hours from our work schedule to have lunch."

"I'm aware of that, Sir, but I have a good reason to—"

"I don't care what your reason is. You should've known better than to come late after lunch in your first day at work, Miss Higurashi. Do you realize what your position is?

In her heart Kagome screamed, 'yes, I realize what my position is, you arrogant prick! I realize it my whole life long without you reminding me of it!' But instead of voicing it, she simply held her head down and nodded weakly.

All the while Sesshoumaru was reprimanding her, his face contorted as if he was in pain, and when she dropped down her gaze, his hand reached out tentatively as if he couldn't fight the urge to touch her. Hearing a voice behind him, he abruptly pulled his hand back.

The gesture, however, was not lost from Inuyasha's sight. He had even caught his brother's expression.

"You'll have to excuse Miss Higurashi, Sesshoumaru. She was helping me out with some problems, and that was why she was late."

"Inuyasha, if I wanted your help in disciplining my employees then I would've asked you."

Without warning Kagome stood up. "Mr. Inoue, I'm sorry that I was late. I understand if you have to take a certain measure according to the company regulation." Right then and there Kagome was sick of it all. She was sick of submission, pretense, and covertness, and most of all she was sick to be treated inferiorly.

"Sit down! And I don't _have_ to do anything, Miss Higurashi!" Sesshoumaru bellowed at her. Kagome looked up at him in shock. This was the first time today that they had finally looked at each other.

Sesshoumaru immediately lost himself in the sea of her eyes. He watched as the spark slowly dimmed, and sheen moist covered the porcelain clear orbs. "Don't cry …" he whispered subconsciously, "Kame—"

"Sesshoumaru!" Inuyasha warned him gruffly while Kagome blinked rapidly to stop her tears from spilling.

But Sesshoumaru was past from hearing him. He gripped her upper arm violently to yank her away from her desk, leading her forcefully to his office, and slammed the door behind him.

**o**

**o**

**o**

**o**

**o**

**+end of the chapter+**

**o**

**o**

AN: don't get bored yet! I'm not promising you that the story will be better, but I promise you to do my best, so if you guys read this, reviews will be greatly appreciated. Thanks! I would also like to thank the talented Lady of the Mist for her idea of this fiction.


	3. Distant

**Distant**

_**when they look for me it is not me  
when they find me I am not there**_

_**when I get there I am already gone  
I carry in my heart a motor that will not let me stop**_

**&.Disclaimer: I don't own Inuyasha.&**

**OoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoO**

Kagome just stared at him. After Sesshoumaru slammed the door of his office, he turned slowly to face her. His hand was still gripping her arm tightly. To his dismay, she had not yet made any protestations against his abusive conducts.

"Miss Higurashi."

Kagome stayed silent.

"What actually did you discuss with our personnel manager during lunch?"

Kagome stared blankly at him for a moment, and then she answered him, "We were talking about the reason why he hired me, Sir."

"And why did he hire you, Miss Higurashi?" Sesshoumaru questioned her coldly.

"He believed, despite my lack of experience, I seem to be the right person for this job." Kagome answered him dispassionately.

Sesshoumaru went behind his desk and took a seat. He leaned forward and pressed the tips of his fingers together. "Now, Miss Higurashi, tell me the real reason why he hired you."

"Sir?"

"What are you scheming with my bastard brother?"

Kagome looked at him intently for a moment, and then she smiled bitterly. "I understand."

Now it was Sesshoumaru's turn to be puzzled. "I would very much like to understand this as well if you allow me. What exactly do you understand?"

"This whole commotion, or why I was hired, and why the other employees seemed to alienate me. What exactly did Mrs. Kahara Misako ask you to do, Mr. Inoue?"

Sesshoumaru frowned. "Kahara Misako, the chairman of the Kahara group? What- what the hell does she have to do with any of this!?"

He was probing his mind to find the appropriate data for this new information. Kahara Misako. A wolf youkai. She had lost her mate three hundred years ago and had an only son, Kahara Kouga, the successor of the Kahara group. He was mated with Ogata Ayame. They were arranged to be married ever since they were children. According to the newspapers, there were some obstacles to their wedding procedure, but Sesshoumaru hadn't read any further. He was unconcerned with such insignificant gossips.

"When my place was mugged just eight months ago; when two strangers broke in my place and demolished what was left in it; when I got thrown away from my own apartment; all these impediments; every time I tracked them back, only one person seemed to fit in the picture. Mrs. Kahara Misako. And now, she had found a new way to obliterate me. Is this some kind of fun pleasure to all of you youkai high society? Just like the hunting season? To teach an inappropriate human her place?"

Sesshoumaru was speechless for a moment. There were hundreds of questions he wanted to ask, but the only one that he was able to phrase was, "Youkai?"

Kagome blinked, and then she snorted to hold back a laugh. "Oh please! Do you think I'm stupid? I must confess that you hid it quite well, but there are many traits of a demon in you that weren't quite hidden. Kouga told me how to —"

She paused. Her expression went grave.

Sesshoumaru's eyes blazed into hers as he spoke, "You were the obstacle."

Kagome smiled. Her eyes lit up with fake, impudent coquetry. "The term that Mrs. Kahara Misako used was actually blunter, but you could assume that was me."

"I see." He gazed at her for a while as if judging the truth of her account. "Go back to your desk, Miss Higurashi. I need you to write a few letters." He then occupied himself, writing something on a note.

"Excuse me?" She looked baffled.

"I'm not going to repeat myself. And that is the first rule if you truly want to work with me. Don't make me repeat what I have said to you. Do you understand?" Kagome nodded.

"Respond sufficiently when I asked you a question. Now, do you understand?" he spoke without looking at her.

"I understand perfectly, Sir." She made her way out and closed the door on the way.

Sesshoumaru stopped his writing. His jaw contracted as he crushed the metal pen in his hand. Waves of emotion washed over him. It was not her face that created such havoc in him this time, nor was it her scent, but, because for some inexplicable reasons, he felt as if he was betrayed. Why did her manners have to contradict her physical appearance? He didn't realize that he was identifying her with someone who was not her.

**OoOoO**

After she closed the door behind her, Inuyasha grabbed her hand roughly.

"Did he do anything to you!?"

Kagome shook her head impassively as she struggled to disentangle her hand from his grip. He looked sheepishly to where their hands were joined and grinned. "Sorry, I forgot you don't like to be touched."

She then smacked his arm. "That's not what I said! Don't make it seem like I have some aversion against physical contacts, which I don't. And you're not going to let go of my hand any time this moment, are you?"

"Oww! Damn it! I was worried about you!" He pouted, looking at her accusingly. Kagome felt guilty all of a sudden.

Inuyasha smiled when he saw the look of remorse on her face. "Hey, so you have a soft side inside you after all. It's a shame that you have to be offensive all the time. Why is that, I wonder?"

"Offensive? Me?" She tilted her head up. A flash of memory briefly slipped through her mind,

// _"Kagome, you're so sweet." A masculine voice whispered hoarsely against her throat. His hand was trailing down her spine sensually. She mewled softly and kissed the hand that held her face —_ //

"Kagome? Hello … Are you alright?"

She snapped out of her daze. "Why should I care about what you think of me? Just because I'm unfriendly to you doesn't have to mean that I'm hateful. If you are used to people who are able to tolerate your sickening amicable attitude, then you should've accustomed to the people who simply can't stomach you." She seethed at him.

"Ouch," and he actually grimaced when he said that. "So it's just me?"

She gave him an exasperated look. Finally she managed to disentangle herself and made her way behind the desk.

At first Inuyasha simply stood there and watched her openly, but she had already tuned out her awareness transmitter and ignored him. And when he left, she didn't follow him with her eyes because she was already far away. This happened sometimes. When she was lost in her own world, images of the past seemed to kick in and began to play in time-consuming tempo. Everything seemed to connect to the past. From the marble floor to the blue pen in her hand; marble was the floor of the apartment she had shared with him, and she remembered distinctly the coolness of it against her bare skin; blue was his favorite color as well as the color of the contusion on her hip when he had had her too roughly.

**OoOoO**

Sometimes some of us were destined to love once and never to love another, and yet we still had to wonder on what basis did this love actually stand? This question always had Inuyasha baffled.

He was now in a relationship with an attractive woman, and he was at a point in his life where he was ready to step into the paranoia of every sane male in this world, a commitment. The reason for this resolution was not because he couldn't imagine a life without her—he could in fact imagine himself achieve quite nicely on his own, or that she was the first woman who touched his heart—he wasn't even sure if he cared for her more than he cared for his past girlfriend. It was none of those reasons. It was because of her stares, one of her cold stares that sent chilliness into his heart, subduing his primal beast; the stare that said 'what would you have done without me?'

This reason was pathetic he knew. It was just that he never knew any other reason. It's like as if he had never loved before.

That was why he just couldn't understand his brother. Sesshoumaru had been married when he had been in the age of twenty, a young age for a youkai to step into the official mating ceremony, and he had lost his mate a year after he had mated her. He had since then never sought for another, much less loved another. In the past –freaking- 500 years.

And the coldhearted bastard acted as if he had lived the greatest romance ever. As if he could never love again. As if one was truly dim-witted enough to think that Sesshoumaru could ever love and therefore undergo love.

He hated it when his brother constantly looked down upon his past relationships with women. The countenance of his face suggesting that only he knew what love was; the way he carried on with his life as if he was the only one who was suffering in this earth; the whole egotism and smugness of it. Only Sesshoumaru alone could wear his heartache like a wristwatch of an expensive brand.

So Inuyasha decided to teach him a lesson. He had to understand there were some people out there who were not as fortunate as him, to understand that there were people who truly had to carry the world's suffering. That Aung San Suu Kyi was still under house arrest, or that in the Middle East the war was still active; it wasn't about him and him alone. This was what drove Inuyasha to set up this little game for him the moment Higurashi Kagome applied for a job in the company, that and the fact that he hated Sesshoumaru's guts.

And so the basis was the person; the one who he would never forget, dead or not dead or metempsychosis.

Of course there were times when a surge of compunction attacked his conscience. Like at the time when the girl looked touchingly delicate and vulnerable as she was waiting in the lobby. But thanked God he read Sun Tzu, and the line that he kept repeating in his mind of scheme was the key point of the conquest, 'all warfare is based on deception'.

Most likely he should've played on the x-box a little less often.

**OoOoO**

Kagome went home to a small apartment that she neither loved nor hated. As she opened the door, she spotted a little dirt on the surface of the wooden entrance. Immediately she drew out a hankie out of her pocket and began to wipe out the soil. She didn't even realize that she had gone so far as to spend five minutes to polish the timber. And when she finally finished polishing it, she started.

And it came to her all at once that she was reluctant to come inside to her apartment.

She couldn't keep living like this, she thought. She couldn't keep feeling like this.

She went to the kitchen and prepared herself a cup of instant noodle. She went to her fridge and drew out a bottle of water. Setting her small dinner on the low table, she crouched down to sit in front of the table.

When one lived alone, there were certain procedures that they would do on daily basis, because nobody would come to tell them that it was time for breakfast, lunch, or dinner, or if it indeed time to sleep or get up. So she had to remind herself that she had to eat and sleep, timing her own activities, to be careful not to make one day out of two.

She was not always this lethargic and offensive as Inuyasha phrased it quite courteously. Once she was sweet and innocent and agreeable. A certain ookami had once tasted her skin because she was so sweet and had taken away her innocence because she was agreeable, until everyone else convinced her that she was none of those.

And she had begun to believe it, because somehow it justified everything. Villains weren't remorseful, and she sure as hell hadn't been remorseful when he had kept giving her gifts. After all, what were gifts among friends? She had liked them too much and hadn't been stupid enough to refuse opulence or smart enough to hold on to it.

But she was none of that now. And a heavy weight of compunction began to oppress her. She had given back everything, but still it wasn't enough. And so if she felt lost and miserable tonight or yesterday or the day after that or in every damnable day in this past ten months, it was of her own doing.

**OoOoO**

Sesshoumaru checked and checked again. There was no important data on Higurashi Kagome; no scandals, nothing to satisfy his avidity to find something to defile her, anything to crush this image of her. It seemed that the Kahara family had taken care of the scandal thoroughly.

He closed his eyes.

But it was only a face and a scent; nothing more than a face and a scent, and yet it was everything.

He slammed his fist onto the desk. He closed his eyes once again.

It didn't matter, he had decided. Such problems had occurred now and then in this past 500 years, but he had gone on. He always had.

But when his mind strayed to wonder what a certain raven hair girl could be doing tonight, he wondered … why he went on at all.

**OoOoO**

It was dawn, and Kagome couldn't sleep. It wasn't supposed to be this way. Before, she had derived small pleasures when she was alone in her bed and didn't have to expect that some time at night a hand would groped her and wrenched her away from her sleep.

And it wasn't because of the sheet either that she seemed to be sleep-deprived. She had to admit it was not as soft as the Egyptian cotton sheet that she once had had, but this sheet on the bed was hers. She had bought it with her own money, and the least it could do was to help her find a peaceful slumber, but it didn't. Maybe she should've kept the Egyptian cotton sheet after all.

She hadn't allowed herself to keep anything at all that was from him. Although in the beginning when she had bought some of the things, she would had never thought they would just be temporarily hers. But after the breakup—if one could call it as such—she hadn't been able to bring herself to use any of the luxurious things. The feelings just hadn't been right. As if she had been one of the bought items, and the other materials had just complemented her. As if she had lost something.

As cliché as it was, she had felt as if she had lost her dignity.

So as to save herself, at the last moment she just had had to gain it back. In the end, her proud action had turned out to be the biggest mistake she had ever made in her life.

She hadn't known that she had broken many hearts by simply giving him back everything he had given her, and how that little innocent act of gaining dignity had taken away the dignities of many others.

**o**

**o**

**o**

**o**

**o**

**+end of the chapter+**

**o**

**o**

AN: Excessive emotional baggage. I know, a cheap way to add a plot in the story. But still hope you like it, and if you do… really?!


	4. Storm and Stress

**Storm and Stress**

**&.Disclaimer: I don't own Inuyasha.&**

**OoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoO**

"So that's why I never like seaweed. I mean when one bundle tried to drown you before, I bet you wouldn't fancy it much either."

Kagome blinked. She stared down at her miso soup and gulped. "Are they that dangerous?"

Inuyasha nodded, and his expression was dead serious. "Be careful that you don't choke on them."

She nodded absently and pushed away her soup bowl.

"Should I get you another soup?" Inuyasha asked her ingenuously.

Kagome shook her head.

They were having lunch together in a small restaurant near the office. It was a habit they had developed for the past four weeks. At first Inuyasha had had to drag her out to lunch and dismissed the protests of her unwillingness to spend any time with him. But after the second weeks, she had gotten quite accustomed with their lunching dates. He even hadn't had to drag her away anymore. At one o'clock sharp she would be waiting for him in front of the office building.

Kagome picked on her food, feeling slightly uncomfortable. She somehow felt as if someone was watching her. She looked around her to find a middle-aged woman came strutting at them. Once the stranger was in front of their table, she raised her hand and smacked Inuyasha on the back of his head.

"Oww! Shit! What the fuck do you think—" Inuyasha caught himself in time as he saw who the assaulter was.

"Old hag—"

She smacked him again.

"Kaede-baba, stop that!" he yelled furiously. His hand was rubbing the spot where she had smacked him.

The woman smiled and sat down next to Kagome, making her fidget slightly. Suddenly she took Kagome's hand in hers and rubbed it gently.

"Now, tell me the name of this sweet girl who willingly tolerates the likes of you, Inuyasha." Kaede smiled kindly at Kagome and softly squeezed her hand in hers.

Kagome stared dumbly at her, feeling strangely meek and submissive. Inuyasha cast a glance at her, and for a moment he was captivated by her shy attitude that he had to tear his gaze away to answer Kaede's question.

Kaede smiled softly. She had caught the tender gaze that Inuyasha had given to the young girl.

"Kaede-baba, this is Kagome. Kagome, this old hag —"

Kaede leaned forward in her chair to smack him again. Inuyasha immediately moved his chair slightly aback and corrected his introduction.

"Oh she's adorable, Inuyasha." Her attention went back to Kagome. "Well, eat, eat, you need to put some more meat in those thin arms of yours."

"Yes, ma'am," Kagome answered her and began to eat slowly.

"So," turning her head to Inuyasha, Kaede narrowed her eyes at him, "I hope you have a good reason for taking this girl out for a date. Especially when I heard you are still engaged to Kikyou," she leaned forward to whisper to him; an unmistakable tone of approval laced her voice, "or have you left her to be with this girl?"

And as if things couldn't get worse, Kagome choked on the seaweed from the soup and began coughing for air.

"Now look what you've done Inuyasha; you upset her! Now set things straight with her and tell her you'd made a clean break with Kikyou!"

"Shut up, old hag!" He went beside Kagome and started pounding her back. When she quieted down, he still kept rubbing her back, making Kagome squirm a bit.

"You're okay?" he asked her gently. Kagome smiled at him and nodded. "I'm fine." She looked at the woman beside her and began to speak, "Aunt Kaede—"

"Did you hear that, Inuyasha? Isn't she sweet? She called me Aunt Kaede, aaaw …" she crooned at Kagome and pinched her cheek.

Inuyasha immediately rubbed Kagome's assaulted cheek. "Stop it, will you? It hurts."

Sitting in the middle of them, Kagome felt like a five-years-old again. Suddenly Inuyasha grabbed her hand and pulled her out of her chair. He walked rapidly towards the door, ignoring Kaede's shouts.

"What are you doing!?" Kagome tried to disentangle herself, but Inuyasha ignored her.

"Inuyasha!" They stopped in the middle of the street.

He seemed to be avoiding her gaze. "I just … don't want her to ruin this thing that we have …"

Kagome was baffled for a moment. "And what do we have?"

He kept his gaze down. "To have you opening up to me; I mean, just three weeks ago you treated me like shit, and now you're nicer to me, and I don't want her to come and ruin this, intentionally or unintentionally."

"Ruin this? You mean our lunching arrangement?"

"You can call it anything you want. You can even call me your lunching pal."

"Friends …" Kagome whispered softly, "Inuyasha, you're too nice, too nice for your own good, too nice for me."

"I don't understand. Are you flattering me?" Kagome laughed softly at his question.

"You're making fun of me," he muttered under his breath, "Let's all make fun of the stupid friendly puppy called Inuyasha." He paused. "You know, you do this all the time, making me feel sometimes as if I'm stupid or something. The way you behave as if you had experienced something that made you seem so bitter. How does it feel? I mean being reserved. Does it make you feel important?" He was suddenly angry with her, because she had let him having a glimpse at the sweetness that she was, and then closed it again with her hurtful, covert remarks.

Kagome narrowed her eyes at him. "One hour friend, that's all you are to me, Inuyasha, nothing more. It's just sixty minutes of a day that I can afford to waste."

"Fine, if you want it that way, then that's what you're going to get. Just let me tell you something. You don't realize this, do you? I'm the only friend you have in the company. I'm the only one who's willing enough to befriend a bitch like you," he spoke quietly and left in anger.

Kagome drew a deep breath. It had been a long time since she felt as if she wanted to bawl and cry her eyes out. She imagined for a moment what it would be like to walk up to him and ask him for forgiveness. What would happen after that? Would they stay as friends? Spending more time with each other more than an hour, and then what? She couldn't afford it. With the condition of her heart in this moment, she couldn't afford any renewed vulnerability, didn't even know if she could stand it. Maybe once she had cared and loved freely, but now she couldn't have her dignities bruised like in the past.

**OoOoO**

Inuyasha felt a hard smack against the back of his head again. He didn't have to turn around to identify the assaulter.

"What did you think you were doing, leaving me alone in the restaurant with the bill? And not to mention dragging that poor, sweet girl roughly before she had eaten at all. What's going on, Inuyasha?"

He turned around to face her. "Kaede-baba, this is ridiculous! I don't have to explain anything to you!"

"Well, yes you do, boy. Do I have to remind you who had wiped your runny nose when you were just a brat? Or who—"

"Alright. What do you want to know?" His voice was clipped and hard.

"Who is she?"

"Sesshoumaru's new secretary."

"What is your relationship with her?"

"We're friends."

"Why does this girl resemble Kameko perfectly, down to her scent?" As she made her inquiries, she was feeling a bit disappointed to find out that the girl wasn't in relationship with Inuyasha.

"Nature selection," he answered her impassively.

She glared at him. "Don't play smart with me, boy. Tell me why did you hire her?"

"I didn't —" he began to protest but stopped instantly when she shot him a warning glare.

"Do you think I'm senile enough to not know how your pea brain works? You're the personnel manager. And if it wasn't you who hired her, I hardly doubt that it was Kagura. Tell me. You have plans. Are they good or are they bad?"

"For some people they're good, for others probably not," he admitted heavily.

"Wrong answer. Now I want you to tell me honestly if this scheme of yours is good for Sesshoumaru and his new secretary."

Inuyasha remained silent.

"I can't believe you! What have gotten into you? What do you want exactly? To have them fall in love with each other, and then to have the girl realizes that in the end she isn't loved for the right reason?"

"No! Hell, no! There's no way I'm going to let that happen!" He practically yelled at his own nanny.

"Then, what!?" she snapped at him, "What do you think will happen!? What do you expect to result from this encounter!?"

"I don't know!" he snapped back at her. "Shit …" He dropped his gaze.

"Inuyasha … it's not his fault. It's not his fault that you're illegitimate. It was not his fault that his mother treated you like dirt. You should've nothing against him. He had never done anything in his power to hurt you."

"Maybe his fault was that he had never done anything about it. Maybe I would've not hated him so much, had he cared at all if only just for the tiniest bit and maybe for the wrong reason. If he just — fuck!" He banged his head against the wall.

Kaede looked sadly at him. She started to reach for him but he flinched away from her touch.

"Don't look at me like that." His tone of voice was cold.

"Fine," she sighed. "Play your little game but remember, don't hurt her. This girl … it was as if she … there's something about her, Inuyasha. The way she tried hard to be in focus —"

"It's maybe because of the drugs I've given her." He smiled at his little joke but quickly changed his expression when he saw that his nanny was glaring at him.

"Do you know what it takes to look cheerful everyday even when you feel as if the sadness was eating you from the inside? I know this feeling too well. Ever since I lost my husband —" Inuyasha rolled his eyes as if he was going to hear something that he'd heard uncountable times before, but she hissed at him, "And you will listen to me, young man!"

"This girl had been through a lot. I could see that when I looked in her eyes today, and I really don't think that she would appreciate it when someone tries to pull a scheme on her that would only result to more wounds."

Inuyasha started to feel guilty but he kept his impassive gaze at her.

"And you like her. No, don't try to deny it; I can see that you do. So play your little game but don't hurt her or yourself." She smirked at him and left.

**OoOoO**

"Miss Higurashi?"

She stopped her typing and looked up to the cold face of her employer. "Yes, Sir?"

Sesshoumaru kept his gaze straight, refusing to look at her, but Kagome was used to the way he ignored her. She was even actually glad that he wasn't trying to be kind or overtly friendly.

"Have you finished filling the invoice data I've given you?"

"I have, and I've put it on —"

"Just answer me yes or no," Sesshoumaru snapped at her.

Kagome looked up in surprise. There really was no ending to this. The way he behaved from day one was as if he was trying to provoke her. She gulped down her anger and answered him tiredly, "Yes."

He had sensed it, the small change of mood before she suppressed it down. The whole month he had tried to ignore her, treated her coldly and rude, but she just didn't get it that the ball was in her court. He couldn't just fire her out of no reason less they would know. And his conscience questioned him this time, 'know what?'

And the thing was, he himself didn't know. All he knew was that for the first time in 500 years he felt threatened, and he didn't know why. He couldn't tell anyone that he had paranoia for something that didn't exist in name or form. He just knew that it had something to do with her.

So he took his chances when he felt her anger and began to pick on her. He knew just how to break her.

He had noticed that time and again how distressed she was every time someone reprimanded her for a simple mistake, and on the next task she would check every single detail on her work for a mistake. It was simple. She hated being chastised.

So he began to attack her on the unnecessary, picky things that she hadn't done, or works that he found were unsatisfactory, though they were perfect to the point of flawless.

Kagome shut her eyes tightly. Her lids trembled a little. She bit her lower lip to contain herself.

But Sesshoumaru kept on attacking her, mentioning everything she did wrong even though they weren't mistakes at all but things that he decided were annoying.

Suddenly she stood up and left the room.

Sesshoumaru could only watch her in surprise.

**OoOoO**

She downed her third glass of whiskey sour and banged it on the counter. She then wiped her mouth with the sleeve of her blouse carelessly and threw a look at the bartender, signaling that she needed another shot.

"What's been on your mind, babe?" he asked her casually as he brought her the drink.

She scowled at him and grabbed her drink. "I'm not your babe."

"No, but you're that wolf's babe, who dumped you last year," he said tartly.

Kagome felt a rise of anger, and she began to climb on the counter to pounce on him, but suddenly a hand held her arm steadfastly down. She turned towards the owner of the hand in anger and was surprised when she gazed at the cold eyes of her employer.

She immediately yanked her hand back and straightened her blouse. Sesshoumaru sighed and unconsciously brushed a stray strand of her hair from her temple. Her instinct was to slap the hand that had tenderly touched her hair but she was too shocked to move.

Sesshoumaru realized all of a sudden what he had done, and his hand froze for a moment, but he kept his cool composure as he dropped his hand down.

Kagome narrowed her eyes on him. "If you come here to tell me that I'm a lousy worker, you can keep that comment to yourself, because right now I'm not in the mood of being criticized."

"I came here to get a drink." He started to order a glass of scotch and turned once more to her. "I suggest that you join me. If you stay here waiting for his next comment, I won't be holding you down from a real fight for the second time."

Kagome huffed and followed him as he led their way to the table for two.

As they both took their seat, Kagome ordered for another drink. Sesshoumaru kept his eyes fixed on his drink when he suddenly lifted his head and asked her out of the blue.

"Do they know he's a youkai?"

Kagome blinked.

"He said wolf," Sesshoumaru explained apathetically.

Kagome shook her head. "No. it's just his nickname. Everyone calls him wolf."

"Why did he break up with you?" The question was out before he could hold himself back from asking.

Kagome looked at him funnily. She pondered for a moment and tried to think of an answer. "I don't know." The answer hung in the air. It was as if she too was wondering why he had broken up with her.

She didn't know if it was the alcohol speaking as she continued, "One day he just stopped calling me and stopped coming to our apartment. I never saw him ever since." She frowned.

Sesshoumaru felt a spurt of anger hearing what she said. Without thinking, he blurted out, "what a jerk."

Kagome brought her strayed attention back to him. "What? No! No, he wasn't like that. He was so kind and sweet— and— and I owed him so much. I wasn't even mad or anything when I found out that he was to be married. I mean I was surprised, but—" She shook her head abruptly when she realized that she had stuttered out her words.

She stared at him, but he could see that she wasn't really looking at him. She was lost in her stupor, and he couldn't help but notice that she did this a lot.

"There was an ad in the newspaper. I couldn't remember what newspaper it was, but I remember seeing this one-page massive ad as I opened it. And I thought that it had to cost a lot to order such a gigantic display. I didn't even have the time to be curious as to what kind of announcement that was so important when I caught the character of his name, and I didn't read any further because somehow I know …"

She straightened herself up in her seat. "And I had this silly notion," she giggled, "that he's going to propose to me." She laughed hysterically.

"Stop it!" Sesshoumaru hissed at her. His eyes darted to scan the surrounding, looking if they were evoking people's attention. "You're drunk!"

"How dare you!" She cried out in indignation. "I'm not drunk! I want you to apologize to me right now!"

"Higurashi!" Sesshoumaru warned her, but she just glowered at him. Seeing that they now had other people's attention, he gritted out, "I'm sorry."

"That's better. And I want you now to admit that you're the biggest jackass in this world." She waited. "You won't? Well, you are a jackass, jackass!"

Sesshoumaru narrowed his eyes at her. "Pathetic," he spat out bitingly.

She raised her hand to slap him, but he caught it before it connected to his cheek. He pushed her hand forcefully back. "Just admit it. He broke your heart when he left you and broke it once more when you found out he was to be married. It was disgustingly just like the song; he left you high and dry," he said sneeringly.

But Kagome shook her head in confusion. "You don't understand. What we have was not love. It was just an arrangement —" Her eyes went wide. "It's just an arrangement, and he never— he never said— that he loved me," she stuttered as if suddenly the realization hit her.

She stood up abruptly and stumbled her way to the exit.

Sesshoumaru silently cursed and followed her as he tossed the money on the table.

**OoOoO**

"Miss Higurashi!"

Kagome ignored him and continued to walk away.

"At least tell me where you're going." He caught her hand finally and spun her around.

"I'm going to ask him what exactly our arrangement was." She struggled against his grip.

"Have you no dignity, Higurashi?" he asked her in a tone of disgust.

She stopped struggling and began to hit him with her free hand. "What's the matter with you!?" she screamed in frustration. "This doesn't concern you! Why don't you just go back being that asshole boss that you are!?"

She leaned weakly against him. "Why am I like this? It shouldn't affect me like this, after so many months of being alone, I thought … but I can't— because I felt so guilty, and he was so nice …" She pulled away from him and started to walk away.

"Where are you going?" Sesshoumaru asked her softly.

"You needn't worry about me. I'm not going to crash his house and cause a scandal." She looked up at him and laughed bitterly. "I don't even know where he lives."

"I know where he lives," Sesshoumaru replied quietly.

She looked up in surprise, and then she shook her head and ran away.

**OoOoO**

She had decided today to quit her job. It was quite obvious why. After her outburst last night when she was a little drunk, she found that she couldn't face him anymore, and she had a feeling that this was actually the outcome that he too had hoped for.

She got up early that morning. But as she lay in bed, she couldn't seem to find the energy to face the day. She tucked herself deeper in her bed and pulled the blanket over until it covered her head.

When the clock struck nine, she dragged herself out of bed and took a shower. After she had finished, it was already ten o'clock. Still she found herself stalling time. And at ten thirty she left her apartment for work.

As she was nearing her workplace, she noticed a small crowd gathering in front of the building, whispering loudly. Their gazes were fixed at the top of the building. Kagome looked up to see a man standing on the railing of the rooftop.

She didn't know what possessed her that day to go inside the building and took the elevator until she was on the top floor. Maybe it was out of curiosity. Maybe something inside her stirred the moment she saw the man, or maybe she just wanted to help.

After climbing the stairs that took her to the rooftop, she opened the door to find herself almost swayed by the heavy gust of the wind. A crowd had gathered behind the man. Some of them were probably his friends as they were screaming at him, telling him not to jump, yelling something about a certain someone was not worth it.

Kagome fought her way until she was up front, and then she felt clamps of hands gripping both sides of her arms, holding her back. She looked to the right and left to find that Inuyasha and Sesshoumaru had taken a grip of her upper arms. Both were shouting at the same time. "What the hell do you think you're doing!?"

Kagome squirmed against their holds. When they finally realized what they were doing, they immediately released her arms. Kagome turned to Inuyasha. "What is that man doing?"

Inuyasha shrugged. "Jumping off from the building?"

Kagome glared at him. "I've noticed! Why?"

Inuyasha sighed and started to explain, "This guy used to work for us as a junior accountant. He then fell in love with his coworker, and they started a relationship. But two months ago they broke up, and the woman is going to marry another man. And the man was his friend from what I've heard."

Kagome listened intently. "And now why is he doing this?"

"That's obvious, isn't it? He wants to win her love back," Inuyasha said impassively.

"By threatening to jump off? And where is the woman?"

"We already called for her, but she refused to come."

Kagome stepped forward. Both males immediately shouted at her, "What are you doing!?"

But she had made up her mind. Something inside her was telling her that she couldn't let this man jump. She suddenly felt a grip on her arm, holding her firmly.

"This is not about you, Higurashi," a cold voice called out to her. She turned to Sesshoumaru to find his eyes were blazing into hers, warning her not to interfere.

She choked a sob, and Sesshoumaru's eyes went wide in surprise. His grip loosened immediately, and he was rubbing her arm up and down instinctively.

"I know," she said softly, "But he might as well be me. I just want him to know why it's wrong to do this to oneself." She pried his fingers gently away and took a step forward.

"Mister," she called out to him. The man turned to her in surprise and almost lost his balance, eliciting shocked gasps and screams from the crowds.

"What do you want!? You almost made me fall! Do you want to kill me!?" he yelled at her.

Kagome put her hand to her chest and paled slightly. "So— sorry! I didn't mean to surprise you."

Inuyasha muttered under his breath, "Stupid girl!"

Kagome took a deep breath and stepped closer to him, inching towards the railing.

"Wha— what are you doing!? Don't come any closer! If you do, I'll jump!" the man yelled frantically.

"Mister," she called out to him once more, "she's not going to come."

"Then she'll just have to have this on her conscience!" the man answered her harshly.

"What's your name?" Kagome asked him softly.

"What is it to you?" he replied. Kagome just shrugged at him. "Ogata Souji."

"I see. Ogata-san, I'm Higurashi Kagome."

"You work here?"

"Yes, I'm new here. I work for Inoue Sesshoumaru as his secretary."

"Oh, so you're the new secretary. Tell me is he as frightening as they say?" Souji asked her curiously. Kagome gave him a look telling him that he was much worse, and to her surprise he snorted.

Inuyasha cleared his throat and glared at Kagome when she finally noticed him. She threw him a confused look. "You're talking to a dangerous suicidal person," he mouthed to her. She ignored him and turned to Souji.

"You can't do this." She spoke softly.

"Higurashi, have you ever been truly in love before? Do you know the feeling you get when you're with the person you're in love with?" His eyes stared vacantly ahead.

"You overlooked all the things that bothered you. You worked in the place where she's at even though you couldn't stand the other coworkers. You suffered a tyrant boss because you knew in lunchtime you'd be seeing her again. And when she made this special bento for you on regular basis, you felt as if this feeling couldn't get any better. You began to dream this perfect dream where everything was simple and happy because you and she were together, but then suddenly someone was telling you that he was going to take her away. What would you do?"

Souji sobbed down, and then angrily rubbed his tears. Kagome reached inside her purse and gave him a disposable Kleenex. Souji took her tissue and managed a weak thank you.

Kagome sighed and leaned towards the thick railing. "But was she sharing your dream with you, Ogata-san? Was she happy too?"

Souji narrowed his eyes at her. "But I was happy with her!" he yelled at her.

"But she wasn't happy with you!" Kagome yelled back. Some of the people in the crowd were silently cursing her while Inuyasha had to control himself not to throttle her. Sesshoumaru, on the other hand, looked absolutely calm and composed, almost bored, but, secretly, he was curious.

"She obviously wasn't happy with you if she decided to break up with you and marry the other guy even though she just knew him," Kagome continued relentlessly, "Ogata-san, snap out of it! She doesn't love you."

"I know!" he screamed. "If not, why do you think I'm here and beg her to return to me!? I love her so much that I couldn't imagine a life without her."

"No, you don't. You don't really love her. If you do, then you'll be able to let her go." Kagome replied tartly.

Souji turned to her and started to laugh bitterly. "I don't love her!? Where did you read that cliché that if you truly love someone, you'll be able to let her go? It doesn't work that way in real love, Higurashi!"

"Because it's true …" Kagome whispered softly. And then she pulled herself up and looked at him straight in the eyes. There was strength in her voice as she continued to speak, "Ogata-san, what's wrong with letting the one you love marry someone else? What's wrong with wanting the one you love to be happy? If you don't wish for her happiness, then you don't love her." Unconsciously, sheen of moisture covered her eyes, but she didn't feel the tears running down her cheeks until she felt a gentle finger wiping them away.

She turned to find Souji had crouched down on the railing and was looking at her with understanding.

"I used up the Kleenex you've given me," he explained to her. She shook her head, telling him it was okay.

The crowd behind them, who had caught every single word that was exchanged, sighed in relief. Some of the women were even crying. Inuyasha looked at their direction in confusion as he couldn't help but notice the similarity between them, the tired look in their faces. And when he saw the way Souji's hand brushed her cheek tenderly, he suddenly felt a burst of possessiveness that was never there before.

Sesshoumaru stood in silence. The expression on his face was no longer composed and calm. A terrible, purely selfish sadness overcame him hearing her.

Suddenly a strong gust of wind caught them by surprise, and Souji started to lose his balance. The next thing Kagome knew, she was holding an empty air.

The crowd shrieked in panic and horror as they watch him lose his balance. They started to rush towards him in order to help him. Kagome screamed and reached out her hand to him. But he was already falling. Out of instinct she wanted to follow him but strong arms caught her waist, and a familiar voice whispered desperately, "I got you! It's okay! I got you!"

She wanted to scream at him that it was not okay; it would never be okay, but she just sagged weakly against him and wept brokenly.

It was not a moment of choice. When one of the two male individual succeeded holding her now in his arms, it had been actually a matter of seconds. But this was the heart of the new chapter in their lives. And as Inuyasha saw her holding on desperately to his brother, he could only look on in confusion as to why all of a sudden he felt this stabbing pain in his heart.

**OoOoO**

Kagome felt as if she couldn't wake up from a terrible nightmare. She was holding his hand, and the next thing she knew, he was falling down, fast and hard.

She closed her eyes and buried her head deeper to the form cradling her body as if it was able to protect her from the world and herself. She had held on to him desperately as he had to her. Panic shrieks and loud sobs filled the air, and he held her tighter, trying desperately to muffle the uproar around them.

Inuyasha looked down below, expecting to see a body splattered on the pave side of the road. Suddenly he let out a loud laugh. He nudged his brother a bit too roughly, gesturing him to look down, but his brother narrowed his eyes on him and let out a warning growl. Sesshoumaru tightened his embrace around Kagome and rocked the soft form in his arms to and fro.

Once again Inuyasha poked him hard and gestured him with his hand to look below. Before Sesshoumaru lost his temper completely, Inuyasha yelled out to him, "He's okay."

Kagome, who had heard him, scrambled out of Sesshoumaru's embrace and looked down. She let out a relieved shriek and waved her hand to the now grinning Souji who was safely rescued by a huge air mattress.

And something in her heart exploded. It was as if she had been given a chance again. That she might have the blessing to hope once again. She looked up swiftly to the one who had held her. As if her joy was contagious, Sesshoumaru began to smile for the very first time in a very long time. He pulled her against him and rubbed his chin on the top of her head.

"Crazy girl …" he whispered softly into the delicate shell of her ear.

**OoOoO**

"Well, do you have anything to say for yourself?" Sesshoumaru asked her sternly after they had entered his office.

Kagome, who was still high on endorphin, blinked at him in confusion.

"Do you have any excuse for being three hours late? Or do the office-hours vary for your convenience?" Sarcasm was on sale today.

She made a heavy crash back to reality. "Err … I was late?" And the sun coming through the window, indicating the high noon, winked at her.

Sesshoumaru raised his brow, his countenance indicating that he really didn't have to answer such dim-witted question.

After a long moment of pause, he exhaled heavily. "Go back to your desk."

Kagome almost complied absentmindedly, but then she remembered somehow that something great had happened, and to end it like this was in some way wrong. The adrenaline rushed back in her blood.

"I can't," she answered excitedly, momentarily forgetting with whom she was dealing. Not only that he was Sesshoumaru, he was also like … her superior?

"You can't?" He was very much interested to hear more.

"Yes, haven't I said it already?" she replied exasperatedly in a rushed tone. "I want to do something." This was in actuality a lapse of sanity normally caused by a magnanimous enlightenment. "I want to get an ice cream, maybe Inuyasha want one too," this spoken to no one in particular, she sauntered away from the office, leaving a bedazzled youkai in her trail of insanity.

**o**

**o**

**o**

**o**

**o**

**+end of the chapter+**

**o**

**o**


	5. 986 Horses

**986 Horses**

**&.Disclaimer: I don't own Inuyasha.&**

**OoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoO**

"Souji-kun!" Kagome shouted. A wide smile was plastered on her face as she rushed to catch up to him.

"I ate two pounds of roasted chestnuts last night. Oh, I'm so going to regret this for the next two weeks. I still have four pounds left in my apartment, but my fingers are so sore from peeling them," she started to babble cheerily.

"You should've called me!" Souji turned to her, getting himself excited as well. "I love roasted chestnuts!"

"You do!?" Kagome asked him vigorously. "What do you say we go to that ice café near the office and try some of the chestnut gelato that just came out?"

"I love gelato!" Souji nodded enthusiastically.

"I thought you already ate two pounds yesterday," Inuyasha commented as he slung his arm around Kagome's neck.

"Inuyasha!" Kagome greeted him happily.

Inuyasha grunted his response. He refused to be infected by all that cheery morning babble.

"You're going to get fat from all that chestnuts," he continued flatly.

Kagome puffed up her cheeks and flung his arm away angrily.

"See, you're already fat," he squeezed her cheeks with the palms of his hands as he teased her affectionately.

"Inuyasha!" Kagome screamed at him while he intelligently dashed away to escape her wrath. "I'm so going to skin you alive!"

"Miss Higurashi, cease your screaming right this moment." A breeze from the Antarctic Ocean rendered both Kagome and Souji motionless.

Sesshoumaru sauntered past the frozen pair.

Souji turned to Kagome with a big grin on his face as he mouthed to her, "You are so dead."

Kagome glared at him in response as she rushed behind her boss.

**OoOoO**

"Do you not have clothes?"

She was in the middle of taking notes of the researches-task he had assigned her when the question, the rather uncalled-for inquiry, rang to break the brief silence.

"Excuse — me?" Kagome looked down to survey her choice of clothing. She couldn't decide if her boss was pointing on the lack of formality in her clothes or the lack of her wardrobe-choices.

"You wore that suit three times in these two weeks." The latter, it was.

Red-faced, Kagome answered him awkwardly, "Well, I haven't time to shop yet."

"You had two weekends." Everything that came out of his mouth was a statement. He stated his demands, stated his accusations, and he even stated his questions, which she found downright annoying at this moment that she missed the intimate atmosphere of their conversation.

Kagome looked on annoyed.

Sesshoumaru glanced at her briefly and then focused his gaze back to the screen of his laptop. "You're an executive secretary. You should carry an exemplary appearance before the training employees."

Kagome didn't know what to do. She couldn't very well tell him that she hadn't any money to spend on clothes, having had to pay for her phone line and furniture. Payday wasn't due until two weeks later.

"Go to the finance chief on the thirty-fourth floor. I will have him signed you a check that you will spend on extending and _upgrading_ your wardrobe. You can take the day off."

Kagome got up from her chair, but she was hesitant to leave.

"The amount given is an exclusive budget reserved for improvement of the company's image. It will not be taken from your paycheck."

Kagome smiled brightly before she answered him, "Yes, Sir, and thank you, Sir." She exited the office with a little happy skip between her steps.

The moment she left his office, Sesshoumaru watched the closed door with a small smile on his lips. It was the second time in, yeah, five hundred years.

**OoOoO**

Shopping spree

The budget half a year rent of a posh Tokyo condominium, so that would mean … a lot plus three must-have handbags.

The first tip one always had to remember at shopping was to wear comfortable clothes that would be easy to get out of and into. This rule applied as well for shoes; flats would be very much recommendable.

Today's fashion trends dictated a requirement for dresses of various styles, Tunic, Empire line, floral, jersey, Grecian, shirtwaisters, cutaway dresses, halter necklines, Trapeze A-lines, Smock yoke band dresses, bejeweled frocks, Posh parka sporty dresses, Balloon puffball dresses, Layered chiffon and tulle dresses, fabric flower textured dresses, sash, belted and wrap dresses.

A requirement as in must-have-or-die-especially-if-you-have-the-figure, so dresses were now in the possession of a very happy shopper.

Separates were the second necessity, all the needful things such as shirts, blouses, tops, camis, smocks, cropped jackets, coats, skirts, shorts, cropped trousers, skinny jeans, leggings.

Nobody, absolutely no one could ever ignore shoes, especially the spike studded stiletto heel platforms and gold high heel peep toe shoes. As Kagome tried on a pair of black lace high heels peep toe pumps, she discovered that shoe fetishes were actually normal everyday people like her and the guy who was trying on a T-strap high heel platforms, sitting next to her.

We should move on to bags, but, among all the clutches, handbags, and totes, the author's brain almost exploded at the thought of exposing more variety of accessory-items to an addicted shopper. So let us draw the pause line, here and now.

**OoOoO**

Kagome headed for the office the next day wearing a brand new dress she bought yesterday. It was a cap-sleeved tunic shift dress with an over scaled graphic print and minimal color palette of black, white and flashes of ochre, khaki, and burnt orange.

A black leather handbag and a pair of sleek black court shoes matched her attire. Her wavy long hair was down, looking soft with blown-out effect, a part of her front hair pinned up on top of the head, giving it a runway look. From her partly hidden delicate earlobes, dainty chandelier drop earrings dangled elegantly, giving her whole look a slight glitter touch. The hairstyle and the earrings framed her beautiful face perfectly, looking fresh and fabulous.

A dainty hand pushed a long stray hair away from her face, showing off perfectly Chanel Black Satin polished fingernails. Skinny bangle bracelet in gold matte dangled from her delicate wrist.

Inuyasha couldn't help but stare. It wasn't his fault that her dress showed off plenty of shapely legs and that he was so … male. His fellow companions besides him stopped and stared as well. One of them even began to form a classic statement without being able to finish it, "Is that legal …"

Inuyasha was following the swish of the dress' hemline intently until a hard smack on the back of his head brought him back to the pave side of reality.

"Close your mouth. You're drooling like an idiot." Sesshoumaru walked past him with a grim look set on his face.

"Higurashi," Sesshoumaru greeted her in a cold and clipped tone.

Kagome smiled brightly as she turned her head to her side. "Good morning, Sir."

"Are you not cold?" Extreme disapproval laced his cold and heavy tone.

"No, not really," Kagome replied cheerily, oblivious to the implication stated.

It was stress that was ticking annoyingly on his temple. Long hours of work and pointless bureaucracy never seemed to cause this heavy attack of migraines before, but with this slip of a girl he felt terribly aged, five hundred years older than he was now, which might make him even older than the city itself.

"Is that the best that you come up with?" Sesshoumaru rubbed the sides of his forehead while he closed his eyes.

Kagome was about to ask him in return what exactly he had asked her when she saw the hand motion of her boss. She decided to wait for the continuation of the question instead, which was probably the wisest decision she had ever made in her whole life.

"You took a whole day off yesterday, and this dress is the result?"

Kagome nodded slowly in trepidation.

His high level pain threshold had amplified ten notches higher as a malevolent attack of migraines threatened to black him out.

"I think she looks great," Inuyasha drawled, steeping beside her.

Kagome shook her head at Inuyasha, silently telling him not to make things worse.

Inuyasha ignored her silent code and continued on, "I'm sure our clients would like to be greeted by a beautiful employee, and it would set a perfect example for the other coworkers that we put great importance in our appearance."

Sesshoumaru just gave him a bored glance and walked faster ahead of them.

"That was close," Kagome exhaled in relief. She turned to Inuyasha to thank him, "That was a nice safe, Inuyasha. I really owe you —"

Her savior was focusing his stare on her thighs openly.

"Oww!"

Kagome bopped him on the head and walked faster towards the building.

Sure the hit had hurt, but the action following it was worth it when he saw the swishes swung more gaily.

**OoOoO**

Kagome and Inuyasha were so lost in their conversation in the elevator that they got off at the wrong floor.

As Inuyasha walked down the hallway, he sensed the unfamiliarity of their surroundings. A slight apprehension overcame him as he recognized now which floor they got off. He turned to Kagome with a grave expression plastered on his face.

"I forgot to warn you about something," Inuyasha spoke to her sternly. "Kagome, whatever you do, you are not to stop at this floor ever again. You got me?"

Kagome nodded meekly. Her round eyes blinked slightly out of confusion. "Why not?" She asked in a soft, collaborative tone.

"Because," Inuyasha continued, his tone resounding hers, "A pervert resides on this floor."

"Is that a way to talk about your lifelong friend, Inuyasha?" a calm voice interrupted their whispering.

"Kagome, come here quick!" Inuyasha ushered her to stand in front of him, her back against his front. "Don't ever stand unguarded before this pervert. Always remember to keep your butt out of his reach," he ordered her in a firm, educative tone.

The epitome of obedience, Kagome nodded her head and stood firmly in front of him while eyeing the intruder suspiciously.

Inuyasha smiled softly behind her, extremely pleased to have her so compliant. And then he turned to his friend. "Six feet, Miroku, you'll stop when you're six feet away from her, and then you can greet her."

Miroku rolled his eyes and continued stepping nearer to the pair. "Mizukami Miroku, at your service, beautiful maiden."

Kagome twisted in Inuyasha's hold and looked at him questioningly. The handsome dark-haired man dressed in an expensive custom-made suit seemed harmless to her, except maybe for his antiquated way of speech. But Inuyasha shook his head at her firmly and narrowed his eyes at the speaker.

"Six feet, Miroku, or I'll obtain a court order for real."

Miroku sighed heavily and stepped back despondently. Seeing this, Kagome started to pity him and shook off Inuyasha's hold as she stepped closer to the stranger and extended a hand to shake his.

"Higurashi Kagome, nice to meet you."

And sure enough a hand closed in on hers most ardently. Miroku brought her hand to his lips to kiss each knuckle courteously, but he had, unfortunately, two hands, which each had a mind of his own, and so one sneaky appendage rested itself happily in a most unwanted area in Kagome's form.

Kagome froze. She turned her head to numbly watch the hand that had accommodated itself on her hip. A slap then followed, but it wasn't one of her hands that had retaliated.

"And this is what you should do, Kagome, if he should ever pull that kind of stunt again," Inuyasha reminded her calmly as he extricated Kagome away from Miroku.

"Inuyasha!" Miroku roared as he held his assaulted cheek. "That stings, asshole!"

Inuyasha ignored him as he dragged the confused girl back to the elevator.

"Wait!" Miroku called out to them. "Don't leave me here alone on this floor. People rarely came to visit me anymore," he pleaded shamelessly.

"_Girls_ rarely visit you, Miroku, and I truly understand this since you welcome them every time with your sweaty groping hand," Inuyasha barked at him as he ushered Kagome away from Miroku's line of sight.

"Sesshoumaru was right, this dress is ridiculous," Inuyasha muttered slightly in stress when he saw that Miroku was ignoring him as his gaze was practically glued to the back of Kagome's thighs.

"Excuse me?" Having heard his mumble, Kagome stepped out of his hold and snapped at him, "I thought you find it nice."

'Yeah it's nice when I'm the only one watching you in it,' he replied mentally, not even conscious at the implication of his thoughts.

"Wait a minute!" Miroku shouted and smacked his head. "You're Higurashi Kagome, the one who pushed Ogata Souji down from the rooftop."

"What!?" Kagome sputtered in rage.

"Yeah, you're the girl who had a crush on Souji and decided to push him down off the building because he pissed you off for always yapping about the girl he had a crush on."

"What!? What!?" Kagome lost her ability to speak coherently at the insanely misreported incident. Who in the right mind would twist such a story like that?

Inuyasha hung his head down guiltily. At first it was just because the gossips-starving coworkers had annoyed him so much with their question that he had nodded to every question they had thrown at him, seeing he had been the closest eyewitness to the incident. He surely didn't know that the story came out this warped, though.

"I _helped_ him! I wasn't trying to _kill_ him!" Kagome gasped indignantly.

"Well," Miroku assessed her head to foot, "you can push me down anywhere and anytime you want," he drawled out seductively, and rather unwisely.

This time the bodily damage came from Kagome herself. Leaving the twenty-fifth floor residing pervert, she dragged the wide-grinning hanyou to the elevator.

**OoOoO**

"So, where were you yesterday anyway?" Inuyasha asked her casually.

"Working," Kagome answered just as casual.

"How come I didn't see you the whole day then?" a hint of curiosity entered his tone.

"Were you looking for me?" Kagome asked back innocently.

"What!? Of course not! Why would I be looking for you?" Inuyasha said a tad too fast and nervously.

"Because you missed me? Can't stand the thought of not seeing me even for a day?" Kagome teased him mercilessly.

He flushed to the root of his hair.

"Relax," Kagome giggled, "I was only teasing you. I was out yesterday in attempt of upgrading my wardrobe for the improvement of the company's image."

She sighed then. "I failed though. I don't think he liked what I bought."

"Don't take this the wrong way." Inuyasha coughed. "But I thought you were broke."

Kagome glared at him for his insensitivity.

"Well, you said it yourself when we were out for lunch the other day, and I said we should go to that Thai's fine dining restaurant instead of the regular yatai." Inuyasha defended himself.

Kagome contemplated this for a second. "I used the budget-money reserved for this kind of necessity, and he gave me the day off to spend it."

"Budget? What budget?" Inuyasha asked her, confused.

"Exclusive budget for improvement of the company's image," Kagome told him in reply.

Something inside Inuyasha clicked; it was actually not so bad, having a sense of logic from time to time. "That budget," he commented dryly. It seemed that Sesshoumaru had decided to doll up his pretty secretary.

Inuyasha didn't know why, but he suddenly felt the need to tell Kagome that such budget never existed, and that she needed to run as fast as she could away from Sesshoumaru.

He was closing in on her when she looked up to him with a surprise look on her face. He leaned down towards her and locked his gaze with hers with an intent look on his face. And this was how Sesshoumaru found them as the doors of the elevator slid open.

Catching a glimpse of her employer standing before them, Kagome quickly pushed Inuyasha away.

"Coming out? Or are you taking yet another ride?" Sesshoumaru asked them with a bored look on his face.

"Shut up, asshole," Inuyasha answered him quietly.

Kagome hastily stepped out of the elevator. She looked back questioningly at Inuyasha, wondering why he stayed back.

"I'm going down to the finance, asking them for a special kind of budget to buy me a cute Italian suit." The last remark was meant especially for Sesshoumaru, and Inuyasha watched in satisfaction as his brother stopped in his track.

**OoOoO**

Sesshoumaru looked across his desk at the nervous girl chewing at her bottom lip. He took one more look at her dress' hemline and went angry again.

"Are you and Inuyasha in relationship?" he asked her in an indifferent tone.

"No! Oh God, no. He's engaged by all means. What made you think we're like that?" Kagome asked him, agape.

"I don't know. It's just seemed that you have this habit of seeing the wrong person," he answered her in an uncared tone though he knew perfectly well that his words were going to hurt her.

Kagome was silent for a moment. A hurt look flickered briefly in her bright, out-of-this-world aquamarine eyes, but she willed the painful emotion away. This she could only do because she truly believed that he wouldn't cause her a real harm, not when he had helped her.

"That was rather uncalled for," she said to him softly.

It was. He admitted. But he'd be damned if he were to take back what he said. She needed to know that excessive friendly intimacy would not be taken friendly into the formal world, that she needed to discipline herself and not acted like a girl who wanted to be loved by all. That he was unhappy to see her and his brother standing in such close proximity was what this all actually about, but this thought seemed distasteful to him considering that a mini dress had brought this on.

While he was lost in his own thought, Kagome had moved to stand next to him. Sesshoumaru jerked his chair back when he saw her so close to him. She gazed into his eyes. Never before had he felt so intimidated by a gaze before, but he was. He looked down only to find himself watching the bone structure of her knees in fascination as they bended and went down, and he was looking into her eyes again.

She knelt down before him. The thought of her humbling herself before him had not crossed her mind by executing such act. She needed to get close, and close she got. She didn't know where she had gathered the courage to touch him, but her hands moved on their own accord to cup his face.

Sesshoumaru held his breath. For a moment he was intoxicated by her nearness, so unconsciously he allowed this proximity to spell its enchantment over him, almost forgot why he had kept himself cold and untouchable until now.

"Don't think that I forgot," Kagome spoke softly, "You held me and stood by me. You stopped me before I could follow him, and I hated you at that moment, but now I know you've given me something that no one had dared to give me before, a second chance."

"So as days passed, I seemed to have forgotten to tell you that I'm grateful for what you did. Here and now, though it might not seem much, I thank you." She extracted one hand from his cheek and replaced it with a soft kiss.

And then she stood up, nodded at him, and left the room, leaving him to his own thoughts which he was not capable of having at that moment.

'Give up,' something inside him was urging him on. Should he really allow himself this? He remembered back the day he had held her. At that time giving her up to her own fate hadn't been an option. He had saved her, he admitted first hesitantly, but then the contemplation almost drove him giddy with its new realization. He had saved her, and she was his.

**OoOoO**

Sesshoumaru exited his office and stopped before her desk.

"Sir?" Kagome looked up to him questioningly.

"Dinner," he answered her curtly.

Kagome began to ponder. Had he meant that she was supposed to order him dinner? And if he did mean that, how was she supposed to know what he liked to eat? Or maybe he wanted her to go to dinner and left him alone in his office, but if that was true, then why had he even bothered to tell her personally when he could tell her by the phone? Or maybe something was wrong with his dinner schedule that she was supposed to take care of, or maybe … what the hell was that all over again?

"I'm waiting, Miss Higurashi." There he went again with that intimidating tone of his.

So Kagome took a wild guess, the wildest. What were the chances that he was proposing to take her to dinner? Probably none, but she might as well start to do something.

Kagome cleaned out her desk and smoothed down her dress. Just when she was about to pick up her handbag, Sesshoumaru called out to her as he was about to reach the elevator, "Are you coming?"

Kagome stood frozen for a moment. He had actually meant to take her to dinner. She hurried to catch up to him when she saw he wasn't going to wait around for her.

When they arrived at the restaurant, an overeager headwaiter greeted them to the entrance and ushered them to their table.

The headwaiter handed them the cards, but Sesshoumaru refused it. "We will order now. We'll have grilled unagi (eel) along with Ama no To Sake and grilled wild duck with black pepper for main course," he assessed Kagome briefly and then continued ordering, "Black beans boiled with syrup for the dessert. Thank you."

Kagome could only sit there with a stunned look on her face. Her boss had ordered for her confidently. Unfortunately for him, she couldn't stand all the dishes he had ordered.

Kagome took the card back from the headwaiter and reviewed it briefly. "I'll just have Kayaku Gohan (Rice with Chicken and Vegetables) and a corona, please. Thank you."

When the headwaiter left them cheerily, Sesshoumaru lifted his brow questioningly at her.

"I don't like sake, unagi, duck, and black beans in syrup," Kagome explained curtly.

"But you used to li—" Sesshoumaru stopped himself. "And why don't you like them?"

Kagome frowned. "I just don't. Do I need a reason for having food preferences?"

"Maybe it's just because you haven't tasted them before," Sesshoumaru replied stubbornly.

"I tried them." Kagome didn't know why but his insistence started to irritate her. "I've tried them before, and I didn't like them. What made you think that I would?" she questioned him back.

He couldn't very well answer her that she had used to like the dishes in her previous life, so he opted to ignore her question instead. An awkward moment of silence passed them.

Their food came, and they resumed eating quietly.

As Sesshoumaru noticed how neatly Kagome handled her chopsticks, he complimented her on it to break the uncomfortable silence.

Kagome looked up. "I should be quite capable of handling my eating utensil just as I'm capable of ordering for myself, I think," she replied dryly.

"Indeed, I believe you do," Sesshoumaru commented coldly.

This was not the way he wanted it to proceed. He had thought to impress her by knowing the things she liked to eat, but that had failed miserably. He felt cheated somehow. It was as if he had to start from the beginning again. Such things as memorizing her food and drink preferences were eventually preserved in vain.

Kagome began to regret snapping at him. "And why do you like them?"

Sesshoumaru looked up slightly in surprise. "These are not my preferences. I have no food preferences."

"Really?" Kagome asked him with rounded eyes, "You can eat anything? Even natto?" Kagome wrinkled her nose in disgust. (natto: sticky, fermented soya bean)

Sesshoumaru almost smiled in response, but he willed the silly expression away. "If it's good for you."

"You're painstakingly neat with your chopsticks as well," Kagome commented as she watched him eat.

The dinner went on smoothly from then on, but Sesshoumaru had somehow wished that they could somehow talk more or that somehow the meeting would turn into something more.

He offered to take her home with his limo. She refused at first but then relented when she saw that it was indeed getting late.

As they sat in the car side by side, a heavy silence engulfed them again. Kagome decided to break the ice. "Do you drive?"

Sesshoumaru turned his head to her. "I do. Why?"

"Nothing. It's just that I can't imagine what kind of car you drive."

Sesshoumaru was quiet for a moment, and then he spoke, "What car did _he_ drive?"

"Hm?" Kagome couldn't follow him for a moment, and then her expression softened. "Oh. He drives a Ferrari, neon-blue." Seeing his almost imperceptible disgusted expression, Kagome started to laugh. "Don't ask me. He likes the attention."

"I bet," Sesshoumaru muttered under his breath. "I drive a Bugatti Veyron, black." Inside he cursed himself for his lapse. He sounded like a man undergoing a middle life crisis. The next thing he knew, he would be comparing how many villas they had.

Kagome looked at him and smiled. "Actually I prefer Bugatti so much more than Ferrari. It's the sound, you see."

Sesshoumaru was waiting for her to continue.

"I read this somewhere that Bugatti intended his car to sound like a boar scratching its back when it cruised by, so that people would know that it's a Bugatti that passed by. And the same goes with Ferrari, I think; only it's supposed to be the sound of a horse. But I prefer the purr of the boar." Kagome reclined back to her seat and sighed. "How I miss driving it. He used to borrow me his car every now and then."

Sesshoumaru just couldn't resist. "Would you like to know the feel of a Bugatti?"

**OoOoO**

"Are you sure this is okay?" Kagome asked him nervously, sitting on the driver seat of the Bugatti Veyron 16.4 coupe.

Sesshoumaru looked at her in challenge. "Are you backing out now?"

"No, of course not," Kagome answered him huffily, "but you know the city streets are not suitable for 986 horsepower."

"The streets are empty at this hour." And besides he had made a quick phone call to make sure that the street was kept empty.

"Alright," Kagome inhaled deeply as she started the car. She felt the power of the sixteen cylinders' engine as she reclined back to her seat, feeling the wonderful pressure that was building up in her. Soon Sesshoumaru and the world were forgotten as she accelerated the speed; only the street and the building excitement existed for her in this moment.

The diamond on the speedometer's needle glittered when the city light entered in racing motions through the windows. Her delicate and elegant hand handled the steering smoothly. The hemline of her dress was riding up slightly, baring plenty of slender thighs. A slight flush appeared on her cheeks, and her lips went rosier and fuller as her eyes glittered with thrill.

Sesshoumaru couldn't take his eyes off her, and the fact that she was oblivious to his stare made her more desirable in his eyes. The way she drove was like something spiritual, some kind of form of secret animistic worshipping that he shouldn't witness but couldn't bring himself not to.

And when she was back in front of his mansion, she stopped abruptly, needing that final jerk to bring her over the edge.

She lounged back to her seat, molding her back completely against the seat. Her eyes were closed and her cheeks were glowing. She let out a small moan from her full, flushed lips.

And Sesshoumaru couldn't take it anymore as he closed his hard lips against her soft and warm ones and dragged her tiny body to straddle on his lap.

Kagome's eyes widened in shock for a moment, but still high from her excitement, she started to kiss him back just as hungrily.

It was all too much, her dress, her hair, her legs, her breathtaking climax. He hadn't told her today how beautiful she looked. He pulled her body yet tighter against him, running his feverish hands all over her, kissing her desperately; in a way telling her all the compliments she was missing to hear from him and so much more.

**o**

**o**

**o**

**o**

**o**

**+end of the chapter+**

**o**

**o**


	6. Continuum

**Continuum**

**&.Disclaimer: I don't own Inuyasha.&**

**OoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoO**

They were both out of breath when they released each other's lips. Kagome rested her forehead against his before the realization hit her. She had had her boss' tongue in her mouth. No. No. Just a freaking no.

In the meantime she became conscious that she was still straddling him. She scrambled away from his laps clumsily, feeling extremely embarrassed by her involuntary action. She scooted farther away from him, having reached her seat. This could just not be real. Why didn't the gods above take pity on her and strike her dead already?

But wait … Hadn't it been him who had transferred her into his lap? And hadn't he been the one who had initiated the kiss?

Kagome braved herself to steal a glance at him. What met her gaze staggered her a great deal. He was his composed self, totally unaffected. Who had kissed whom actually?

When Kagome only knew how many years of practice this composure had acquired. Sesshoumaru straightened his silk tie and kept his gaze straight. The evidence of his want was inconspicuously and classily hidden.

So who would take the responsibility into either one's hand? Kagome broke the silence first, "I'm sorry. I didn't know what's gotten into me."

Sesshoumaru froze for a moment. She apologized when it should have been his place to do so. He should feel relief that she took the role of the accountable, but the truth was he resented the word apology ever uttered. Because he just didn't feel damned sorry.

He looked at her long, and finally he nodded.

'Coward,' something inside him spat.

**OoOoO**

He might think that she had it all wrong and got confused on her own, that she had apologized because she had muddled up the accountable of the episode, but he was wrong. She had known exactly who had kissed whom. So if nothing came out now from their little incident, then it was only because of the cowardice of both parties.

But sometimes cowardice took a lot of courage too, and sometimes the turnout of the coward act might not be so bad eventually. She had at least positioned herself in a place where she wouldn't be hurt, yet.

**OoOoO**

Kagome examined a 5cm long duckling. It supposed to project disco light when touched or placed in water. She touched the sensors on the base of the duck and giggled when it started a sequence of light in various colors.

Kagome was wearing a white short flutter-sleeved button through playsuit with its bloomers reaching to the mid-thigh. Her hair was french-braided with slight wisps of soft tresses teasing the frame of her face. A pair of natural canvas peep toe wedges adorned her small feet; her hand was dangling a cute cargo tote. She was the picture perfect of a sexy and innocent spring sprite.

Warm breath breezed across the side of her naked nape. "Mini Disco Ducks?" Inuyasha emerged behind her, leaning his tall frame towards her and resting his head on her shoulder-blade.

Kagome nodded and turned towards him. She caught him closing his eyes and slightly inhaling her scent. She immediately pushed his head away.

He tried to quell his disappointment and smiled nonchalantly at her. "Here, I take those." He snatched the pack of the disco ducks from her hand and put it in the basket.

They were at a store called 'DIGS' where it sold a variety of interesting gadgets and gizmos. It was Sunday, and they were in the middle of their morning shopping get-together. Inuyasha had called her last night and had asked her to come along with him looking for a household gadget he had meant to buy. Having nothing to do on Sunday, Kagome had agreed to accompany him.

Kagome took a peek at the basket and grinned as she snatched a pack of tattoo sleeves. "What's this?" She grinned from ear to ear.

Inuyasha seized the packet back and threw it back in the basket, scowling at her.

"What else did you get?" Kagome leaned forward to look at the rest of the items in the basket. She held up a Leatherman Squirt S4 Multitool and examined it for a moment.

"Why'd you need this when you have nails?" she asked him puzzlingly.

"What!?" Inuyasha widened his eyes at her.

"You have perfectly usable nails since you're a han—" Kagome didn't get to finish her sentence as his hand suddenly was brought up to cover her mouth.

"Come with me for a sec." Inuyasha dragged her to the back of the store. He sniffed to detect if there was any presence in the close proximity, and after finding none, he returned his attention to the rounded eyes in front of him.

"How would you know?" Inuyasha asked her growlingly.

Kagome shook her head from left to right in rapid motion. She looked down to the hand covering her mouth.

Inuyasha cursed and brought down his hand.

"I just know," Kagome answered him with frightened eyes.

"And what about Sesshoumaru, did you know?" Kagome nodded. "Was he the one who told you?" Inuyasha pressed her.

"No," Kagome answered him a bit disgruntled, feeling tired of the interrogation. "Look, I know how to detect youkai traits, okay? Don't ask me how or who thought me to, because it's none of your business. And one more thing, you needn't get freaked out that I'm going to tell people around you that underneath it all you have this freaking long silver hair to die for and cute furry dog-ears."

Inuyasha contemplated her explanation for a moment, and then he narrowed his eyes at her. "Now that you know, you won't do something as foolish as to rub my ears, will you?"

Kagome gave him a bored look indicating a silent 'as-if'. "Please as if they're so cute that they're just irresisti—" Kagome squealed when he dropped his concealing spell and revealed two most absolutely rub-able soft-furred ears.

Inuyasha rolled his eyes as she was looking at him pleadingly, unable to keep her fingers still. "Go ahead," he muttered gruffly and leaned his head towards her.

He closed eyes when he felt her soft hand closing on each ears, the tip of her fingers rubbing the silky texture of the appendix tenderly. The ministration was suddenly cut short by the ring of her cell phone.

Kagome reached inside her tote and fished out her mobile. She looked startlingly at the ID flashing on the screen.

Inuyasha opened his eyes, annoyed at the interruption. He raised his brow when he glimpsed at her expensive design cell phone.

"Hello, Mr. Inoue, Sir." Kagome slipped under Inuyasha's arm and headed towards the exit of the store.

Inuyasha followed her. When he reached her, the phone conversation was already finished.

"What does he want?" Inuyasha asked her with hardly contained curiosity.

Kagome was still looking at her cell phone stupendously. She looked at Inuyasha in surprise as if she had just noticed him there and answered him in a quizzical tone. "He wanted me to pack my things and move out of my apartment." She shook her head as the sentence made absolutely no sense at all once she repeated it.

Inuyasha comprehended completely. Sesshoumaru was in the process of staking his claim.

"Where did you get the phone?" Inuyasha asked her suddenly.

"This?" Kagome pointed at her mobile in question, "He gave it to me, said every one of his staff owns it."

"Kagome, this is a seriously expensive phone. Do you think our coworkers toting around such gadget on the expense of the company? Even executives carry around less expensive cell phone than yours."

Kagome looked at him funnily. "So what is it that you're saying? That your half-brother accessorizes me as means of a debauchery?" Kagome said the latter part sarcastically.

"I'm not saying anything." Inuyasha narrowed his eyes at her. "But if you truly can't see it or understand it then you're really stupid."

Kagome opened her mouth and then closed it again. She walked off from him in anger.

"Perhaps you don't wanna see it. This seemed to be the case here, and I almost respected you for being independent," Inuyasha snorted as he followed closely behind her.

Kagome spun around and blazed into his eyes. "What right do you have to judge anyone? Who are you? And why do you even care?" she asked him hotly.

Inuyasha ignored her questions and pressed intensely on the case. "Or would you rather call them gifts? A gift from a friend who's trying to buy you? Do you truly believe that the company reserves budget for dress-shopping? I'm trying to make you see, you stupid girl, that nothing comes for free."

She had heard this before; many, many times before; countless of times before, but the effect of hearing it still hurt her. "You're right," she murmured weakly, "that's exactly what I am. Even if I get out of it, I will fall into the same pattern over and over again, but I wanted to believe that he's just trying to be nice." Teardrops were dangling from her lashes before the pressure of the flood pushed them down. The sight of it made Inuyasha feel weak all of a sudden.

Inuyasha pulled her into his embrace. He barely understood her pain, her tears, even couldn't comprehend why her pain should have a reflecting effect on him, but it did. So he whispered to her hair soothingly, "The thing is you'll never be able to figure Sesshoumaru out, but I know damn sure that he would kill himself before he would do something dishonorable. So perhaps you're right. Perhaps he's just trying to be uncharacteristically nice."

"But why?" Kagome muffled out the question that had been bothering her these last few days ever since Sesshoumaru had kissed her.

He was not the only one who knew the answer to that question, and yet he knew that he should be the one answering it, but cowardice held him back. In a way, a coward act was a path bearer for fate in life.

**OoOoO**

"I'm comfortable in my apartment, and it's fairly commutable to the office, being near to the station." She shouldn't really stutter like that, but it was kind of hard not to when her words came rushing out of her.

It was Monday.

Sesshoumaru was looking at her with a bored expression on his face. "You told me before that strangers broke into your place, demolished your possessions. You've even gotten thrown away from your apartment. I am merely trying to protect my employee's welfare. Is there anything wrong with that?"

"Do you think Kahara Misako will stop there? One thing I know about her is that she won't stop until she destroys you completely," Sesshoumaru continued relentlessly, "Or are your objections based on something else entirely? Do you think that I'm helping you out of personal sentiment?"

"No, of course not," Kagome answered him in a confused voice, "but I just can't move out like that."

"The new apartment is already furnished and paid for. All you need to do is to move your personal belongings inside. Packers will be at your apartment tonight to transfer your belongings to your new apartment. You have packed, I assume?" Giving her no time to think and object, he looked at her with intimidation.

Kagome shook her head slowly.

"You may take the rest of the day off to pack, Miss Higurashi." He nodded at her, indicating that the conversation was over, and turned his attention towards the screen of his power book.

Kagome left the office feeling as if she had forgotten to do something. She shook her head to clear up her cluttered thoughts and failed to do so, so she resumed doing as ordered.

**OoOoO**

It was really a wonderful apartment, an apartment with those extra rooms that would never be properly used or filled, but apparently the decorator had thought out to the last detail as she took the burden of furnishing properly from Kagome's shoulder. It was an excellent apartment because she even had a parlor and rooms with color themes. As she wandered through the high ceiling rooms, she felt as if something just wasn't right, something that a fashionable chaise lounge couldn't fix. She could almost see her sense of individuality went down the modern drain.

**OoOoO**

"Take them back," Kagome spoke almost desperately to the packers, "Take them back to my old apartment, please."

"Miss?" one of the men asked in a confused tone, "We have specific order to help you unpack your things here in the apartment."

"I change my mind," Kagome said rapidly. "I just need to go back, please …" she pleaded once more.

She needed to get out of the apartment fast before the temptation became too irresistible to deny. She was almost out of the door when she crashed into a hard chest of Sesshoumaru.

Kagome looked up at him with rounded eyes. She released the lapels of his suit that she had unconsciously grasped to steady herself against the impact of the crash.

"Put them down and leave," Sesshoumaru ordered the team of the packers while he was still holding her eyes in a hard stare.

He advanced towards her, and Kagome suddenly felt unidentified fear creeping inside her.

"You're afraid, why?" He moved closer yet to her. Unbeknownst to Kagome, she had backed up against a wall.

"Why?" he persisted, moving so close that they almost touched.

Kagome brought both her hands up and pushed feebly against his chest. "Look, I'm not a demon, okay? So I don't have an extraordinary perception of smell, and you're moving so close to me frightens me when I can't seem to read your action."

"It's clear you're not," Sesshoumaru stated.

"I'm not what?" Kagome was loosing the trail of the conversation when he refused to budge.

"A demon, you're not."

"Why are we having this conversation?" Kagome shook her head helplessly. "I swear sometimes you're just trying to make me stupid with your redundant replies."

When she only looked up, then she would see a soft trace of smile lingering on his expression, yet when she finally did look up, his face as well as his gaze remained impassive as ever.

"I can't live here," she whispered desperately. "This is not me. I'll be afraid to touch anything in this place."

"Is this too fine for you?" Sesshoumaru asked in a bored tone.

"No," Kagome negated firmly. "They're just not mine."

"Is renting possessing?" Sesshoumaru asked her.

Knowing exactly where this conversation was heading, Kagome crossed her arms in front of her in a defiant stance and answered him, "No, but to pay a rent with my own money gives me the fulfillment of confidence in my life."

"Your money?" Sesshoumaru lifted his brow in question.

"Money, I earned working," Kagome gritted out. "Why are you so persistent about this? If you meant this as protection, I should now tell you that I can take care of myself."

"You'll stay or you'll go," Sesshoumaru stated simply, "But if you go, you will quit your job and the country."

Kagome looked at him in disbelief. "You can't be serious …" But indeed he was always serious. She started again, "You can't just make me —"

"I can," Sesshoumaru interrupted her, "You know who I am. As shallow as it is, power and money do make the world go around."

A different kind of fear entered her presence of mind. Amidst it all she was confused. Why did everything suddenly turn obscure?

Sesshoumaru didn't understand it himself, where all these base sentiments came from. He never threatened anyone behind empty words; if ever, then it was merely a warning of what about to come.

Sometimes one must not forget what five hundred years of loneliness can do to you.

**OoOoO**

She couldn't sleep. Feeling as if once more entangled in a life that not her own and erratic pattern of destiny that she couldn't control, she wondered why she had surrendered so easily. Was there not something that she could do? Could she not have fought more? And yet there was a small part of her that secretly wanted this.

**OoOoO**

And then there was the everyday routine, where she worked for him Monday to Friday from nine to five.

As if nothing had occurred between them, Sesshoumaru handed her a card. His manner was cold and unreadable.

"A Charity Ball?" Kagome opened the invitation card he had handed to her. "And I should come along?"

"As my p.a., you must," Sesshoumaru kept his attention to the power book's screen before him. "Be ready at eight tonight."

Kagome looked briefly at him and sighed. "Yes, Sir."

**OoOoO**

Hundred pairs of eyes were trained furtively on their every move. Inuyasha wondered when such parties like this had lost their magical touches when every fairy tales still beautified their allusion of prominence.

He missed her tonight. It was already three days since he had last seen her. Every time he came to pick her up for lunch, her desk was always empty, and Sesshoumaru wasn't in his office either. He put two and two together, and for the very first time in his life he truly regretted his stupidity.

What if in the end she would be hurt from his planned encounter. Would she be able to handle it? Would _he_ himself be able to handle it? He didn't know what it was, but to imagine her hurting almost killed him.

He was staring intently into his cocktail glass when two slender hands covered both his eyes. Inuyasha stood there frozen. Suddenly all his emotions were surging up, assaulting his senses, by just her nearness. If he had any sense of awareness at all, he would admit to himself and to her that now and there he was falling —

"It's me!" Kagome moved her hands away from his eyes and came up beside him. She gave him a quick hug and smiled brightly at him. "I miss you," she said with a teasing pout.

And he could only stand there, looking at her like he had never seen her before, and felt this heartache that was never there before.

"What's wrong?" Kagome frowned when she noticed the mix expression on his face. "Are you feeling alright?" She put the back of her hand against his forehead to feel his body temperature.

"You look beautiful," he could only say the one thing that he had wanted to say for a long time.

"Thank you." Kagome smiled softly at him.

She did look beautiful. Clothed in a soft blue-gray pleated silk chiffon strapless dress that fell softly above her knees, with skinny self-tie and boning on bust, her hair was fashioned in a Greek goddess style updo with the front held back by a black two-strip band.

"Must be the sandals," she whispered to him, pointing at the soft gold thin-strap leather sandals with 100mm heel, fastened at her ankles. "They make me look taller," she said sheepishly.

Inuyasha smiled. "Yeah, must be the sandals," he replied teasingly, and yet his eyes held such a confused sad expression in them.

Kagome laughed and passed him a weak slap on his arm. "I was merely fishing for more compliment, you dope."

"Your earrings look nice." Catching on with the game, Inuyasha nodded at her droplet earrings with milky quartz pendants.

Kagome crossed her arms in an annoyed posture; her slender fingers ticked softly against her arm.

"And by the way, can I borrow your purse next time?" Inuyasha batted his eyelids prettily and asked her in a high-pitch voice.

Kagome burst out laughing. "It's called bracelet pochette, silly."

"Practical," Inuyasha commented, rolling his eyes. "Pity they don't make watch pochette."

She laughed again and took his arm in hers. "So, where's your fiancé?"

Inuyasha shrugged as he answered her. "We don't go to these kinds of events together."

"Why not?"

"It's awkward." Desperately trying to change the subject, he looked around to find her companion. "Did you come alone tonight?"

Kagome nodded. "The boss told me he'd catch up in an hour or so, but he was so nice to send his limo for me."

Kagome then turned to him. "So you're my date for the night."

"If I must," Inuyasha replied in a mock heavy tone.

Kagome pinched his arm. "That's not a way to treat a beautiful lady, ogre!"

"By the way, you look stunning in that tux," Kagome commented with praising eyes.

Inuyasha coughed to hide his embarrassment and put his arm around her as he gave her a kiss on the cheek. "Thanks, Gome."

"Don't call me that," Kagome protested while prying his arm away from her, "it makes me sound like a bear."

Inuyasha laughed and ignored her futile objection as he kept a firm, possessive grip around her.

"Finally find yourself a girl who can tolerate you, mutt?" a voice called out snidely from behind them.

Inuyasha stifled a growl when he recognized the stench of the speaker behind them. Feeling a stiffened reaction from the girl next to him, Inuyasha suddenly realized that Kagome's body temperature had dropped rapidly.

The man behind them sniffed and called out in a shocked voice, "Kagome?"

Kagome turned slowly to face the speaker. Her beautiful face looked dangerously pale.

"Kagome?" the man whispered her name in disbelief.

Inuyasha looked back and forth at her and the wolf. He was overwhelmed by the sudden change of emotions between the two of them. He could feel her trembling, but when he tried to put his arms around her to soothe her, she just froze right there and then instead of trying to shake off his hold like she would usually do.

The wolf growled at him, and Inuyasha growled back. Then he suddenly realized how feral the wolf's growl had sounded and turned his attention at his long time enemy.

Eventually he understood. So this was the reason why Kouga had disappeared from his circle for about five years. This was the reason why the world was small and he forever would be just a small part of it, existing insignificantly. At least that was how he felt now.

Our hanyou's only crime was to realize what he wanted a little too late.

**OoOoO**

What would you do if you unexpectedly meet your ex in a party? A lot of magazines had covered this topic multiple of times. A few of them suggested how to behave and what to do. Did they part in a good way or bad? If ever there was a good way to part then why would lovers be apart?

To be exact; what would you do when you unexpectedly meet your ex in a party as the vision of him standing before you brought up memory of you gradually realizing his disappearance by feeling as if a part of you was wrenched out in a very slow process?

It was difficult to part, yet to meet again was like an out of body experience.

**OoOoO**

He barely touched her. They sat across each other so near, inhaling each other's presence, but the feel of it was foreign.

Kagome rubbed her arms, willing the sense of vulnerability to leave her body, but instead of obeying her command, the feeling stayed and tingled through her entire being, sensitizing her skin.

Kouga sat at the edge of the stool. His elbows on his knees supported his leaning upper body. He looked up at her. His eyes looked so sad and tired that she just wanted to climb on his lap and comfort him.

"How are you?" he finally spoke.

"I'm doing okay," Kagome answered him as she sank her head down, "and you?"

Kouga took one of her hands and examined it for a moment, and then he brought it up to his face and closed it with both his hands, inhaling it deeply before he kissed it.

"Kouga …" Kagome whispered sadly.

"I feel like I'm dying," Kouga looked up at her, revealing his inner emotion, sheen of moisture covering his eyes.

"You're married." It was a statement. She had not meant it as an accusation or revelation, but he looked at her, hurt, as if she had slapped him across his cheek.

"Kagome …" he whispered pleadingly, his hands tightening on hers.

Kagome shook her head even though she didn't really know what he was asking from her. "We shouldn't be seen like this," she whispered rapidly, suddenly feeling terribly frightened.

"Why did you give it all back?" Kouga asked her out of the blue, "Everything I gave you. Was it so unbearable to keep them?"

"I don't feel like I own them, not after you left," Kagome tried to explain, but Kouga was past hearing her as he continued.

"I didn't buy those things because I wanted something from you in return. I just wanted to take care of you, Kagome."

"I know. I truly do." She sighed. Sometimes it was just so hard to contradict him. "But still, in the end, I can't accept them, you know that."

"No, I don't," Kouga shook his head. A sense of desperation overcame him. "I still want to come home to you …"

"Don't say that," Kagome's eyes widened as she warned in a fearful voice.

There was a reason for her apprehensive behavior. She had used to hang on to his every word, looking up to him as if he had been truly the only one who had had answers in the world for her. But after he had left, she realized that they both had been just two lost children in this world, restricted forever by convention. Now as unnecessary as the feeling was, she felt a sense of mistrust towards him replacing the obsessive adoration.

"I'm trying very hard, Kouga," she whispered to him earnestly, "So hard to convince myself that what we did wasn't wrong despite what others told me. Please don't prove me wrong."

"Who did?" Kouga asked her confused.

"You know who, Kouga. Please don't make me say her name," Kagome pleaded.

His eyes widened with the new revelation. "She promised me! She promised me that she wouldn't touch you!" Kouga gritted out in anger.

"Your mother was only trying to protect you," Kagome tried to placate his anger when, in fact, she herself didn't believe a word she had said.

"Protect me!?" Kouga let out a sinister laugh. "She protected me alright, protected me that I had to spend three months in the hospital."

"What are you saying!?" Kagome asked him in panic.

"The only way she could stop me from seeing you was to cripple me, and when that didn't work, she threatened to hurt you. Can't you see that it was the only reason why I agreed to —" he couldn't continue his sentence. It was as if he had suffered too much for nothing.

How could she have believed he had suffered less? How could she have not seen that he would have done anything for her? She had for a moment forgotten what it had been like to be loved by him. Had it been a few years earlier she might not have been able to take it, too frightened of the fierce, absolute emotion, but now when everything was over, she knew finally what she had to do.

He got up from his chair and knelt down before her. His hands were gripping hers desperately. "All these months, all I could think of was how I can get back to you. We should be together. We deserve to be together."

Were these the words she had dreamt of? The truth was she had been left alone to close the wound while he might never have closed his own. So, in the end, she had to be the one who fixed this imbalance.

"We can't," at first the words were so hard to let out. Kouga kept shaking his head, refusing to hear more. "We can't, Kouga. You're married."

"It doesn't matter!" he still persisted, not even realizing what he was saying.

"She has to matter!" Kagome reminded him harshly, "She's your mate. It's a sacred bond that binds the two of you through life and death. She might be feeling what you're feeling right now, have you ever thought of that? Do we really want to hurt more people?"

The force of each word was cutting through his heart. He looked up at her in disbelief. Even though he felt betrayed by her words, his expression indicated a heavy acceptance. He nodded tremblingly. "So this is it then? You don't want me?"

And she could take only as much. "Oh Kouga …" She shook her head as the dam began to break. "You know —," she stuttered, "That I —" It wasn't fair; she wasn't supposed to be the one who had to send away her love when she wanted so much to keep him forever. She got up and ran.

**OoOoO**

He never felt this terrible before. It was so vile he almost felt the nausea choking his throat. He was touching her. That dirty wolf demon touched her, defiling her skin with his sullied hide.

"Why is he fucking touching her!?" Inuyasha voiced his half-brother's sentiment loudly, but the difference was that Inuyasha wasn't trembling, holding himself back from this most perverse anger.

Inuyasha felt rather than saw Sesshoumaru's trembling. Sesshoumaru was at a time where he couldn't mask his emotion anymore. His face was pale, and his crimson eyes glared threateningly.

"Sesshoumaru," Inuyasha called out to him. He was about to touch him when he suddenly realized that it was wiser not to as his hand froze in the air.

He turned towards Inuyasha, the fury blatantly unmasked, making the hanyou stepped back in surprise.

Then he saw her running out of the room. He followed her.

**OoOoO**

He found her crying brokenly in a dark corner. This sight should have evoked pity in him, but instead it only fed his fury. He advanced towards her, not knowing what he himself would do when he got to her.

He stood toweringly in front of her, and when he was about to grasp her arm, did she only realize that he was there.

"Don't touch me!" she cried out in the midst of her tears, "Just please, I can't bear to have anyone touch me."

So he didn't. Instead he placed both his hands on the wall, trapping her between his arms, shaking, and waited until the fury pacified under his skin.

**o**

**o**

**o**

**o**

**o**

**+end of the chapter+**

**o**

**o**

AN: please do review. Thank you.


	7. Persuasion

**Persuasion**

**&.Disclaimer: I don't own Inuyasha.&**

**OoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoO**

The night was clear, and the air was breezy, fresh, and clean as it washed away the last drop of the salty escape. The dampness on her cheeks was soon dried, and the beauty behind the misery revealed back its sparkle.

"Why?" he asked.

The endless whys and the desperation instigating them; if he had known any better then he would know that it wasn't the time to ask but to accept.

Kagome looked at him strangely, sniffling, erasing the last bit of her heartache.

"Why did you let him touch you after what he had done to you?" Sesshoumaru asked himself if this question sounded sane enough for her as it did for him.

It didn't.

"Touch me?" Kagome asked back, puzzled.

"He was holding your hand; how could you even stand to be touched by him?" he spoke the words with such intense revulsion that made his voice faltered at the end of the sentence.

Kagome began to leave the bench where they were sitting on. His hand immediately grasped her arm to stop her.

"Like you touching me now?" she said coldly. "Why should I find his touch repulsive and yours isn't? He and I," she spoke with determination, "Were intimate, and you, I barely know you. In fact, I'm very sure that right at this moment you have no right to tell me what I should or shouldn't feel!" Suddenly all her frustration came to surface.

"I mean, 'quit your job and the country'; what the hell is that supposed to mean!?" she half-yelled at him. "You say the most outrageous things to me and do the opposite. Maybe it's you who should quit your job and the country and take the time out to figure out what you want!"

"One moment you persuade me to stand on friendly terms with you, and the next moment you intimidate me. I mean I am conscious about you being my supervisor and all, but, really, do you ever stop to think if there's something mentally wrong with the way you behave?" It was of course suicidal to even consider uttering these words to him, but she was, as most were in this kind of situation, too far ahead, ignoring her sense of self-preservation.

"Every word that comes out of your mouth is an order. I mean, God! Are we in a freaking army or something!? Is this how you treat every girl you kissed? And I can't even trust you answering me without being spiteful or sarcastic because you do this all the time." She paused for breath.

"Are you finished now?" Sesshoumaru asked her after a brief moment of silence.

"Yes," Kagome shook her head, "I mean, no."

Sesshoumaru waited for a moment. "Go ahead then."

She tried to speak again but found that her brain couldn't conjure up anything to let out as her emotion became wholly depleted.

"I'm sorry." The word was so coolly spoken that Kagome thought she had heard wrong.

"I don't usually do this," he continued.

"Apologizing?" Kagome supplied.

A momentary glare indicated that it wasn't what he had meant. "No," he said a bit too sharply, "Courting; I'm not very well-versed with courting."

Kagome sputtered, "You were courting!? Courting me!?"

"Yes." Seeing her incredulous look, Sesshoumaru continued, "What do you think I was doing?"

"I don't know," her face was red as the volume of her voice went lower, "A fling? You know; whenever the mood strikes and such …"

He looked at her long. She grew nervous as she imagined what his reaction would be as she stole up a glance at him. There was laughter in his eyes, tiny specks of sparkle that she found very, very appealing.

"We have to do something about your mood swing, Higurashi," he said in an amused tone.

"Not before we do something about your sudden talkativeness, Sir," she blurted out the retort that suddenly sounded not so smart anymore, fearing that she had pushed too far.

But there it was, the tiniest crack of smile appeared on the corner of his lips, and Kagome didn't know why she felt a bit possessive of that half smile, knowing she had induced it.

Suddenly it hit her; she had been crying for hours! Tears, as in dried streaks and runny mascara and puffy eyes and red nose; she probably looked like a tragic Rudolph from some horror show! Ever so slowly she turned away from him, her hand groping for her make-up pouch and Kleenex in the pochette.

"Is there something wrong?" Sesshoumaru asked, perplexed.

"Nothing's wrong," Kagome whispered frantically as she got up from the bench, still facing him away.

Sesshoumaru held her arm again. "Where are you going?"

"Ladies room," she answered curtly as she tugged her arm free.

"Something is wrong," Sesshoumaru stated vehemently, "Why won't you look at me, Higurashi? Did I say something that offended you?" He stood up beside her, still holding her arm firmly.

"No, you didn't. God! Can't you please let my arm go so I can go to the ladies room?" She tugged again unsuccessfully, working herself up as he was getting closer to inspect her face.

"Not until you tell me right now why you can't bear to look at me," Sesshoumaru demanded stubbornly. A sliver of fear entered his heart at her desperate attempt of flight.

"Alright! I'm going to the ladies room to wash my face, so that we both can have a good memory of this night when I don't look like a fright, okay?" She succeeded pulling her arm free and half-fled from the small garden.

She entered the vacated room with light steps, crossing to the other side of the vast space to the massive door at the end of the room. Entering the hallway of the hotel, she found the sign indicating the searched room.

Once inside, she was for a moment surprised at the sight reflecting back from the mirror before her. Letting out a small shriek, she worked quickly to clean her face. After cleaning every make-up traces from her skin, she noticed her slightly disheveled updo and decided to wear her hair down. Pulling out the pins and the thin band, she finger-combed the soft wavy hair down to the waist. Satisfied with her hair, she applied a pink tulip lipstick thinly to her flushed lips, admiring the combination of the color. She touched her lips and applied the colored paste printed on her finger to her cheeks, smearing it just perfect.

She gazed at the reflection in the mirror. So it was time then, and never before had she felt so scared like she did now. Maybe she could just slip out of the building without him noticing. He was in the garden adjacent to the main conference room anyway, and she could call him then on her way home, telling him that something urgent had come up. The idea sounded passable. She was twenty-one for goodness sake; she had every right to behave cowardly and evade any chances in life that she felt she couldn't yet take.

She nodded at her reflection in the mirror. A sense of disappointment cracked her resolve a little. She really, really liked that smile and those eyes. But she was just not ready, and he was just too complex for her.

She exited the ladies room with small stealthy steps, which would actually work better if she was wearing flats, her gaze scanning around the area hastily.

"Higurashi," the familiar heavy voice that lilted sharply in the last part called out from behind.

Shoot! "Sir?" Kagome answered readily almost too swift to be entirely guiltless.

She turned slowly to face him, flushed to the root of her hair.

"Are you ready?"

She wanted to say no, but as she took in his expectant and slightly worried eyes, the word was uttered before she could even think of stopping it, "Yes."

**OoOoO**

She kept a steady look at the round glass containing a burning candle in front of her. The dim light of the candle illuminated her face like a painting from the renaissance; she was the principal figure in the whole composition, the light in the middle of the contrasting darkness.

He would be contented with just watching her for the rest of the evening and the many next afterwards. If she spoke now, would she speak the words he had heard times and again a long time ago?

He was tired, unbearably tired of being alone for so long, not really waiting and barely continuing. He had not expected this moment of reencounter, and a part of him that had been left alone for so long spurned the thought of togetherness with someone who had forgotten him entirely. But he had to gain her back if only just to appease the sense of possessiveness in him to keep things that belonged to him.

But he was mostly afraid. For some time he had forgotten her smile, the way she had looked on the night he had proposed to her, the sound of her laughter, the feel of her fingers against his face, in his hair; every million and one little things that he felt would terminate his existence if he should ever forget about them.

Yet his mind was asking him over and over again. So this was what he needed, a substitute? If only the girl sitting in front of him wasn't so different then it would be easier to cease this nagging guilt out of his system. If only she behaved like she had used to behave, spoke like she had used to speak, remembered completely that she had loved him, or at least stopped fidgeting in her seat, infecting him with her restlessness.

"Yes?" he asked a bit too harshly, annoyed with the imperfection in the supposed timeless painting to his observation.

"What do you mean by courting me?" she asked timidly.

"It is as —"

"I'm not ready," she interrupted him. She looked up finally and smiled apologetically. "The thing is I don't even know what I'm not ready for, but after what happened tonight I just want to step back and regain some confidence that I didn't realize I had lost."

"One relationship that overtakes another immediately, I'm not sure I want to be in it. I don't want to rebound. If there should be a second love then I want it to be a strong one that has all the capabilities to sweep me off my feet." Her hands twisted nervously in her lap, as she explained to him bravely.

"To tell you the truth, I want it to be nothing different than my first, yet in a way greater because I would want to fight to make it last. But now I just can't seem to believe that such love exists, not when I lost it." Sheen of moisture covered her eyes, glimmering like precious stones cut to perfection.

He was quiet all the while, feeling entranced by her sweet admission and somewhat helpless. How could he object, perceiving that adorable slight flush on the top of her nose?

"So you do understand, don't you?"

He didn't know if he actually did. Was the context of the entire disclosure a rejection? Was she rejecting him?

"You'll receive my resignation's letter by tomorrow. This is the only thing that I can do about my job, but as for leaving the country, I'm afraid I can only promise you that I'll be far, in another city. I don't know yet where, but I'll find something. And you can be sure that you'll never see me again." With that she got up from her chair, gave him a smile that felt inexplicably final, and disappeared from the light in the middle of the dark.

So this was it?

Sesshoumaru could only sit there, silently contemplating. He should let her go. It was the right thing to do. These emotions … these emotions were too delicate to have something to be built upon it. Even though there was this great possessive hunger inside of him, he felt deep sympathy for her absolute ignorance of her situation.

He purged the small sense of hope that had grown inside of him from the moment he laid eyes on her. As he stood up, suddenly the thought of going home oppressed him. His steps became heavy, and the emptiness spread inside his heart like a cold vice grip.

The next second he was running, and in a few seconds he was in front of her.

"Connection," he said to her in a state of agitation.

"Excuse me?" Kagome stuttered in disbelief.

God! How could she look cold and beautiful in this state of human fragility?

"Connection," he repeated a bit too harshly, "Can't you feel it between us?"

All that Kagome could think of was that this man in front of her was actually a romantic.

"If you think about it; if you search it deep inside of you then I'm sure you're going to find it." He desperately hoped that she was going to find it.

"But what —?" The sheer romantic notion of his statement blocked off all coherent response coming from her, "Why?"

Because you had been my wife in your past life and now I wanted you back didn't actually seem very persuasive vocally, so he had to convince her instead that he was a believer. The first thing he did instinctively was to pull her in his embrace, because he had to do something about her temperature drop. His hands were smoothing down the Goosebumps over the skin of her bare shoulders.

Yet when he touched her, words that were meant to persuade her never came. He whispered in desperation instead, "Please don't leave me again …"

It was heartbreaking for her to hear these words; she didn't understand them, but she understood sorrow and loneliness.

"I won't," she whispered back, "I've never left you." The last words were said to convince him. "I'm always here."

Sesshoumaru felt a deep sadness inside his heart. Could that be true? That she actually had been with him all the time? All those nights of solitude when he had cried her name into the cold air, demanding for her to be return to him, had she been there and ignored his call?

His hold tightened over her. He couldn't let her leave; never in his life would he ever allow it to happen.

**OoOoO**

It was already two in the morning when Kagome was finally home, accompanied by Sesshoumaru. At the door of her apartment she turned around to give him a parting smile. Before he was about to leave, however, her hand unconsciously stopped him.

He looked at her hand holding his wrist quizzically and then at her. Kagome's eyes widened when she realized that she had stopped him from going.

"Would you like to come in?" she asked rapidly as she let his hand go.

Sesshoumaru's eyes were searching hers in question. "Do you think I should?"

Kagome nodded. "We haven't really talked."

"Oh." He was slightly disappointed at the invitation for a conversation. "Alright."

She opened the door and entered the apartment, flipping the light switch on, and then she turned around and stepped aside to allow him inside. While she was closing the door, Sesshoumaru kept his eyes on her. His presence behind her felt so overruling that she took her time locking the door of the apartment before she turned and faced him.

Suddenly she felt his warmth enveloping her from behind. He brushed her hair aside and placed a soft kiss on the skin of her back. Kagome's hand on the doorknob tightened as he began to trail small kisses to the nape of her neck, his arm circling her waist. She shivered under the touch of his light kisses and the contrasting possessiveness of his arm around her.

She ducked reluctantly from his ministration to the nape of her neck and turned around to face him. "Would you like some coffee?" she asked breathlessly.

Sesshoumaru nodded and bent down as he moved his face closer to hers. The light was behind him, and she felt as if the darkness, manifesting itself as a masculine figure, surrounding her, was no longer foreboding as it had once felt.

The darkness captured her lips, urging them to open, to allow inside its ardent assault. Helpless not to, she relented; her arms stole up his neck to pull him yet closer. She wanted this, a kiss as the beginning of things, a kiss that washed away obstacles of doubt.

She pulled away when the need to breath became too painful to ignore. She rested her head against his chest. When she had recovered from the effect of the kiss, she looked up and smiled.

She took his hand and led him out of the corridor, turning on the lights in each room they passed.

He followed her obediently, entranced by the movement of her body as she walked in front of him, by the soft sway of her hip.

They stopped in a room, and as she led him to a chair, it dawned on him that this was not the room he had in mind.

She bustled around the kitchen to find coffee, cups, and spoons.

"Do you prefer light roasts or medium-dark roasts?" She held up two containers of the said items, looking at him in question.

Sesshoumaru had wondered a moment ago if they were going to stay in this room long. The question answered his apparently. "The second one," he said in reply, the disappointment barely kept from his tone.

But Kagome failed to notice it as she busied herself with putting the right amount of the coffee and water in the coffee maker.

She came to the table with a jar of sugared figs and two glasses of water. "A friend of mine had this tradition that whenever there's a guest in her house, the first thing she'd do was to serve the guest with this conserved fruit and water. You should try it. The sugar is good to stimulate body warmth."

"But I'm not cold," Sesshoumaru politely refused.

"It's a guest thing," she explained, a bit disgruntled by his rejection, "It's impolite for a guest to refuse the given hospitality."

Still no reaction.

"Would you just please try it?" Kagome added exasperatedly.

"Very well," he answered curtly as he accepted the small bowl of fruit. He chewed on the teeth-rotting sweets subtly and downed it immediately with the served water.

"How is it?" she asked in anticipation.

"It's sweet," Sesshoumaru dryly replied.

"Oh," Kagome responded dejectedly. "Coffee is ready," she remarked as she stood up and went to tend the coffee.

She came back to the table with the coffee and served him a cup of the hot brew.

"How do we do this?" she suddenly asked, taking a sip of the coffee from the dainty cup.

Sesshoumaru raised his brow in question.

"How do we start a relationship?"

"How did you start yours?" he asked back.

Kagome frowned. "Do you really want to know?"

"I need to know about your past relationship, anything about you before we start anything," Sesshoumaru quietly stated.

"I don't see why that has anything to do with us," she balked. "I can't tell you, and honestly I don't want to."

"You will, then, in time."

"No," she said stubbornly.

Both drunk their coffee silently, determined not to yield.

"Fine," she finally said, "But not now, later I will."

Sesshoumaru nodded. It was good enough of a promise for him.

"So, how do we do this? Do we go on dates?" she asked again.

"Do you wish it?"

"Yes. It would be preferable."

He sighed. "As you wish."

"What exactly do you have in mind?" Kagome asked him, a bit curious and discouraged by his lack of enthusiasm.

"You move in with me. We announce our engagement, prepare for the mating ceremony."

She stared ahead in shock. "Did we get engage?"

"You said you'd stay with me always," he reminded her.

"Yes, but it doesn't mean that —"

"So you didn't mean it, what you said?" he interrupted her.

"No, I meant it, but —"

"So what seems to be the problem?"

"I thought we were still in the stage of getting to know each other!" she sputtered in disbelief.

"That's why I wanted to know about you and your relationship," he coolly intercepted.

Kagome could only sit there with an astonished look written on her face. Seconds passed, and she turned her attention to him, narrowing her eyes in suspicion.

"This is what you do, isn't it? You twist everything around so that everything will turn out as you've planned. You even know my answers and questions before I myself knew," she said accusingly.

Sesshoumaru looked amused. "I've read Sun Tzu," he simply confirmed.

"This is not a war!" she protested incredulously.

"You're patronizing me." A note of realization laced her unbelieving tone. "If we're going to start a relationship then you have to stop doing that. A relationship is based on trust and acceptance. Is it too much to ask for you to meet me halfway?"

"I did. You said you wanted to date, and I agreed. You asked me what I wanted, and I told you what I had in mind. I don't have to apologize for being different."

"Different? What is that supposed to mean?"

"Kouga is maybe a wimpy wolf that follows your every command, but I'm not." There he said it.

"Don't drag Kouga into this!" she warned.

"I will if you would." His quiet tone suggested as much warning as hers held.

"I never bring Kouga into our conversation," she defended herself.

"Not in word, but you insinuated it in every way."

"I did not."

"You said that a relationship is based on trust and acceptance. Do you know this for a fact or are you just taking something from your experience?"

"Well —," Kagome wasn't sure what to answer him, suspecting that this was one of his trick questions.

"So the latter then."

"Hey, wait a minute —"

"Taking something from your experience, in other words your past relationship, and incorporating it into your new one is in a way an art of comparison. And I truly despised being compared." (Look who's talking …)

Kagome pondered about this for a minute. "I guess you're right," she admitted dejectedly as she peered into her cup.

Seeing her crushed, he found that he didn't like it. Taking one of her hands into his own, he brought it up and kissed it. "It's not going to be so bad, being with me. I know I'm not romantic or affectionate, but I will do everything in my power to make you happy."

She looked at him with a new sense of trust and smiled at him with a smile that could melt down an iceberg. "Thank you," she said simply.

And at that moment she vouched for him that he would never hurt her. Because she somehow knew that he would always hold his promise. This she should remember because all tragedy began mostly with a promise.

**OoOoO**

Inuyasha tried calling her cell phone again and again. He never felt this sense of desperation before. It was as if time was slipping through his hold and everything was in motion except him. He was tempted to leave a message in her mailbox, but every time the words he wanted to say sounded so cryptic that he canceled it immediately.

Nothing made sense anymore. He shouldn't be the one who was falling into the entrapment of the game he designed. He knew that the very moment he wished for visibility, acknowledgement, was when the karma began to strike.

He needed to say, had to explain in words, he never spoke, that he wanted to matter … to her, only to her. Yet he was afraid to start things wrong and shatter everything with his clumsy statements.

"Kagome, it's me, Inuyasha," he spoke with a vulnerability that made his voice crack, "I've done something wrong, and I want you to listen to me, and eventually I hope that you'll forgive me." He let out a small nervous laugh. "You see I should've never let you go to him. I know this might sound like nonsense to you, but what I'm saying is —," he sighed heavily, "I don't want you to get hurt."

His voice message was recorded and sent.

**OoOoO**

Sesshoumaru was sitting alone in the living room of her apartment, waiting for Kagome as she changed her clothes. He heard a soft beep coming out of her purse. He dug inside the small compartment and fished out a cell phone.

On the screen there were fifteen miscalls from Inuyasha and a voice message. Connecting to the voice message, he listened to it.

He erased the miscalls and the voice message from her phone and slipped the phone back in her purse.

"Would you like another cup of coffee?" Kagome asked behind him as she was coming out of the bedroom.

Sesshoumaru smiled. "I would love to."

**o**

**o**

**o**

**o**

**o**

**+end of the chapter+**

**o**

**o**

AN: please do review. Thank you.


	8. Transition

**Transition**

**&.Disclaimer: I don't own Inuyasha.&**

**OoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoO**

Inuyasha pushed the button of the elevator furiously, ineffectually rushing it. When he got off on the destination floor, he dashed towards her desk only to find it was empty. Hadn't they arrived yet? He knew for a fact that Sesshoumaru never allowed himself to be late for anything.

His sensitive ears caught then subtle movement's noise inside the office. He went inside without knocking.

"Inuyasha," Sesshoumaru nodded, acknowledging him. "Come in. I've been expecting you."

"Where's Kagome?" the hanyou asked him brusquely.

"I gave her the day off, so she can rest properly. Sit down."

Waiting for an explanation that never came as to why she had to rest properly, Inuyasha conceded and took a seat.

"Do you have something to say to me, Inuyasha?"

"What do you mean?" Inuyasha asked him back as he took a paperweight in shape of the ship 'Endurance' from the table and held it carelessly.

The only indication that Sesshoumaru was disturbed by his action was the sudden tick on his right jaw.

"Cut the crap, little brother. I listened to your heartrending message last night." Sesshoumaru's tone of voice was unlike the unconcealed anger in his eyes indifferent.

"And you erased it, right?" Inuyasha replied just as nonchalantly.

"Care to explain to me the meaning of your message?"

"You heard it."

"Yes, and I thought I give you a chance to confess to me of a more intriguing plan than what the message summarized, but then I thought again that the mastermind in question here was you. So I guess that pretty sums it up."

Inuyasha smiled sinisterly. "You're right. I can never carry out a plan. Along the way I get bored with it, but I can always think of a new one."

"Is that a threat?" Sesshoumaru asked him with a bored expression on his face.

Inuyasha shrugged. "Should I convince you otherwise?"

A note of respect glinted in his older brother's eyes, but Inuyasha couldn't care less. He might have yearned for his acknowledgement a few hundred years ago, but now, somehow the ambition died.

"A proof of legitimacy, is that what you want?"

Inuyasha laughed.

"And half of the inheritance?"

"Stop," Inuyasha said as his laughter grew louder, "You're killing me."

Sesshoumaru waited until Inuyasha's empty laugh subsided.

"I'm afraid what I want is one, you'll never give me."

A feral anger darkened Sesshoumaru's eyes. For a moment Inuyasha was intimidated by his brother's fury, but he was at a point when he couldn't care about anything except for her.

"Let her go. What you're doing now is wrong," Inuyasha stated gravely.

"You're the one who started it," Sesshoumaru reminded him sarcastically.

"She is no substitute."

"Shut up!" Sesshoumaru lost his composure for a second.

"She is not who you think she was."

"Enough!"

Inuyasha seemed unfazed by his brother's loss of temper.

"Don't speak of things you know nothing of," Sesshoumaru warned him.

"Fuck that!" Inuyasha felt his temper rose. "You're the one who's absolutely fucking clueless. I know more about her than you do."

"Her fate and mine is already predetermined. That should explain our reencounter. She was meant to be with me. It is only a matter of time that she'll remember who I was in her previous life." Sesshoumaru didn't know where this sudden urge to explain the stand of things came from. It was as if he was trying to convince himself as well.

"Yeah, let's hire a few experts to hypnotize her into remembering her previous life. I thought you were one twisted son of a bitch, but I realize now you're just a fucked-up loser!"

Sesshoumaru willed himself to stay calm. "I'm impressed. It took you five hundred years to refine your speech. It represents the status of your muddy heritage just perfect."

"You think that words such as that, coming from you, can hurt me? I'm disappointed, brother. You have lost your touch," Inuyasha said sneeringly.

"Well, I guess the reminder sounds a bit old. After all, it changes not the truth."

"The older you get the more repetitive you become." Inuyasha shook his head in pretend pity. "You should check for a sign of senility."

"We can sit here and bitch at each other the whole day, but I will not sink to your level, hanyou. Besides, I already won before you stepped into this room."

"You think this is about winning?" Inuyasha asked him in disbelief. "And you think you deserve her?"

"So you tell me then, Inuyasha. Who deserve her? You? Have you claimed her? Has she claimed you?" Sesshoumaru asked him tauntingly.

"Maybe; maybe not, but I'm sure as hell going to make sure that you'll never have her for the wrong reason." For the first time that day there was a sincere determination in his eyes.

"What makes you so sure I don't deserve her? Haven't you heard a word I said? She's reincarnated to be with me again."

"I will articulate this question for you very slowly, okay? Why do you think humans do not remember their previous lives? Because they're not supposed to remember, that's why. They're given a chance to live a new life. It's not natural for them to live the lives that they lived before just as it naturally shouldn't be allowed for us to live this long and bind another soul to us. So don't you come to me explaining about predetermination and all that shit, because gods do not care for us, freaks of nature."

"She was not a human," Sesshoumaru defended weakly.

"No, she wasn't, but Kameko sure as hell deserved the chance to reborn to be one, as god-fearing as she was." Inuyasha sighed heavily. "And besides there is that chance that she might not be her reincarnation at all. I was just ten when I met her, but I remembered how different her traits were than Kagome even though they look inexplicably alike and seem to share the same scent."

"I won't allow it," Sesshoumaru said quietly.

"Excuse me?"

"I won't allow it that she's not her."

Inuyasha's eyes widened. Immense fury surged up anew in him, hearing that statement. "You know what I can do? I will find another individual that looks the same as her and probably has the same traits that you've searched for. What would you do then?" Inuyasha whispered darkly.

"It's impossible."

"You know what they say. There are four people in this world, who shared the same physical traits."

"You wouldn't do that to her," Sesshoumaru replied confidently.

"If it is necessary to inflict momentary pain in order to save her, then I would."

"I think the only one, who needs saving here, is you, little brother. You dared interfere in my affairs and then in hers. Have you forgotten with whom you're dealing with?"

"If I was ever afraid of you, Sesshoumaru, then I wouldn't —"

A knock interrupted them. Sauntering cheerily in a pale pink linen sundress and a white cardigan, Kagome greeted Sesshoumaru while holding a large leather tote bag and a white parasol. "It rains in drizzle outside, yet the weather is so refreshing."

"Inuyasha," she cried out happily, "Why didn't you tell me!?"

"Huh?" Inuyasha stood there, perplexed.

She came to him and gave him a hug. "I'm so happy for you." She pulled back slightly when she noticed that Inuyasha wasn't returning her hug and just standing there stupefied, looking at her dusty plum plastic headband.

"Congratulation," she tried again.

"Huh?"

"Your upcoming wedding, silly. You've been scooped," she announced holding a freshly bought newspaper.

He snatched the paper from her hand and searched for the said news.

Kagome saw the paperweight still held in his grasp and extricated it from his hand. "What were you doing with this?" She scolded him softly and put the ship paperweight back to the table while she was waiting for Inuyasha to finish reading the article of his wedding's announcement. All the while she missed the slight relieved expression on Sesshoumaru's face when he saw her salvaging his belonging.

"You bastard," Inuyasha said quietly, so quiet that Kagome missed it, but Sesshoumaru heard him loud and clear.

"Like Kagome said, a congratulation is in order here, is that not correct, brother?" The words came smoothly out of his lips as if a moment ago they hadn't been just on the verge of murdering each other.

"How?" the question was uttered without any expectation of an answer.

He was going to include him in anyway. "I took the liberty of reminding your fiancé that the wedding has been put off long enough. She, of course, had the same sentiment, and, in fact, it was her idea of pushing ahead with the wedding's date."

Inuyasha shook his head. "It doesn't matter —"

"She also agreed to accompany you on your transfer to New York. You get the promotion that you always wanted. Congratulation for a job well done, Inuyasha, you earn it." A note of true exhilaration entered his tone. For once he was not cruel or taunting.

Her cheeks still pinking from the familiar way Sesshoumaru had called her, Kagome looked between the two men in confusion. It seemed that the congratulator was more felicitous than the receiver.

"You have committed a big —"

"Save it, Inuyasha," Sesshoumaru interrupted him.

"What's going on here?" Kagome asked timidly, "Shouldn't I be here right now?"

"No," Sesshoumaru responded, grasping her arm to hold her by his side, "You have every right to be here."

"Kagome," Inuyasha began.

"Yes?" She in turn was looking at him with these big innocent, trusting eyes.

If he was to tell her now, would she hate him forever? Could he take it, being shunned by those eyes that he loved so much and fell in love with? There wasn't an ounce in him that wasn't pushing him into spilling everything, but in the end he couldn't do it. He was not born that strong.

"I'm sorry," he said.

"What for?" she asked, puzzled.

"For not telling you," he confessed.

Misreading his apology, she came to him like the first time she had into his life, all acceptance and sweetness. "But that's okay, silly. You don't need to apologize for getting married. I'm so happy for you, Inuyasha."

**OoOoO**

That night when Sesshoumaru was in the solitude of his own room, a flood of anxiety attacked his conscience. What had he become? Everything that seemed so right felt so wrong. And yet he couldn't stop; every next move he made was a precaution. He actually understood what Inuyasha said about being freaks of nature. Gods wouldn't want them to exist, so being what were not meant to be, they had to ordain their fate themselves. This, he desperately hoped to believe.

This gave him the power to defy everything, defy gods, defy his kind, and deny this wrongness.

But the fact was he was so deep in the dark right now that he started to question his existence to the point of self-destruction.

The room was vast and empty, but the air was hot and heavy. It was as if he was punishing himself with the sweltering heat. And then, in the middle of the disturbing silence, a phone rang.

"Yes?" His voice was harsh and shaky.

"Sesshoumaru?" The voice on the other line answered timidly.

"Kagome …" Sesshoumaru let out a sound of relief and went to the balcony. He stood outside and felt the cool night breeze against his face.

"I was wondering who this number one automatic dial was," she giggled softly, "When did you put it in?"

"What?" His weary mind was trying to pick up the trail of the conversation.

"Is there something wrong?" she asked worriedly, perceiving the confusion in his voice. "You sound upset."

Sesshoumaru shook his head. His voice went gentler. "Nothing's wrong now that you call."

"Oh," she whispered embarrassedly, touched by his reply.

A silent pause

"What are you doing at this hour?" Sesshoumaru asked frowningly. It was almost three in the morning.

"I couldn't sleep." She sighed in frustration.

"I couldn't either," he admitted.

"I meant to ask you this all day long. Is that okay," she gulped nervously, "We're calling each other by our first names?"

"This is what couples tend to do, I presume," he answered matter-of-factly.

A choked cough was heard on the other line. "Couple!?" she repeated disbelievingly at first, and then she sobered up, "I mean, yeah I guess we are."

"Do you have any second thought?" he asked half jesting and half in fear.

"No," she whispered wearily, "It's just that the swift transition is hard to take. I'll have to adjust more to the idea of being in relationship again. But still," she said accusingly, "I felt as if I had no part in the decision of being in it."

"Care to refresh our yesterday's conversation?"

"No," she answered firmly, "Can't you trust me to have my own thoughts? That maybe I put doubt in this because I want it to work?"

"You should not doubt your mate-to-be," even to his ears, his own reply sounded annoyingly self-righteous.

There was a pregnant pause.

"Do we have to talk like this?" she whispered tiredly, "It was as if every time we're talking in circles."

"What would you have of me?" He wanted to yield. He really did, but he was afraid to lose control of the situation and left alone without being able to stop her from leaving.

"Be yourself, and allow yourself to let your guard down if only for tonight. Sometimes new lovers need this assurance, to be tender with each other's hearts. Do you understand?" This, she said in a soft sad tone.

"They said that to venture great things had to start with a promise. Do you want me to cite a litany of vows?" How do one keep affectation out of something that he wasn't quite sure himself?

"Is it great, what we have now?" she asked in confusion, and then she said in much lower tone, "Is this even love?"

"What would you call it then?" Fear crept into his heart.

Instead of answering his question, she needed to know something else. "Do you love me?"

He pondered long, and even though the answer had always lied there underneath of all feelings of anxiety and loneliness, he didn't want to admit that he himself doubt if this was love. For once he had no names for the emotions he had in him. It seemed too sweet and too raw to be called something that he had once tasted, that he had bragged to have known; the true love, he thought he had had in his life. But if he began to seek deeper in him for the answer of all answers, how would he keep the memory of his wife alive? So he had to believe in one thing, in one of the safest reason there was for love, the connection, the reunion of soul mates.

"I do."

Kagome was astounded. "When?"

"It's always there."

"When?"

"Even before we met," truthfully said.

"We're talking on the phone," she cried out exasperatedly.

"Is there anything wrong with that?"

"What you said," she didn't even know where to begin, "Is supposed to be a confession."

"And I was confessing," he tried again, perplexed.

"But not like this. Not over the phone where we can't see each other's eyes, and, damn it, isn't one supposed to feel something when —" she stopped, horrified by her faux pas.

Another silent pause

"I'm sorry," she timidly said.

"One shouldn't apologize for telling the truth."

"But I shouldn't just blurt it out like that —"

"You're right," he interrupted, "It is more effective, were we face to face."

"Oh," Kagome was a bit surprised, "Yeah." Was he really that dense?

"It's almost four. You should get some sleep," he suggested.

"Okay," she complied. "Wait, tomorrow's Saturday."

"Yes, and we have a date."

"We do?"

"You said you wanted to date."

"I did," Kagome nodded. "So where will we be going?"

"It's a surprise."

"Oh, you do surprises too?" she asked dryly and then immediately regretted it. "Sorry, just couldn't help it. Is there any dress code that goes along with the date?"

"Just wear something you feel comfortable with," he answered, "And bring something to keep you warm. The night can be chilly sometimes, and you tend to be susceptible of the cold weather."

"Okay," she was genuinely touched by his observation, "And thanks."

"I'll pick you up at seven. Is that okay?"

"Seven it is."

"Get some sleep. I'll see you tomorrow."

"Alright, and Sesshoumaru …" the name just rolled off her tongue smoothly, triggering pleasant warm emotion in him.

"Yes?" he queried in a tender tone.

"Sweet dreams."

He smiled softly and waited until the other line was disconnected.

**OoOoO**

To pick something that she felt comfortable with proved to be a harder task than what it had seemed at first. She underwent eleven dresses, six camisoles, nine blouses, five different colors of skinny jeans, three pairs of pants, two pairs of shorts, five mini skirts, and a pencil skirt for the sake of being comfortable.

She woke up at nine in the morning and finished picking an article of clothing by three, which left her four hours to clean, pamper, and dress herself.

As she sat before the ornate vanity in her silk slip dress, polishing her fingernails, the doorbell rang. Frowning in annoyance, she went to the built in intercom with monitor to check the visitor.

"Inuyasha?"

"Kagome, can I come in?" He sounded desperate.

"Yeah, sure." She pushed the key button and allowed him into the building. As she started to the door, she realized that she was inappropriately dressed to receive a guest. Rushing back to her room, she silently screamed in frustration realizing that she couldn't put her robe on because of her freshly paint fingernails.

A brief knock on the door jarred her from her small dilemma. She went to the door and opened it slightly to sneak her head out. "Hi, look, can you please come another time? I'm sorry to have to send you away, but now is a really bad moment," she spoke in a rush.

Inuyasha was staring at her funnily. "Is there someone else in the apartment with you?"

"No, that's not it."

"What are you wearing?" he fingered the thin strap of her slip on one of her exposed shoulders.

"Could you please not do that?" She swatted at his hand annoyed. This action caused the door to open wide enough for Inuyasha to fully appreciate her state of attire.

"Yikes!" she cried out as she tried to close the door.

"Kagome, look, this is really important." Inuyasha tried to block her attempt.

"And it's important to keep your eyes somewhere else, you pervert! I can't believe you!" she scolded him as she struggled to shut her door, "You're almost married! You're not supposed to look at other woman's body parts! You're not supposed to look at other woman. Period!"

She somehow managed to exceed his power with the strength of desperation and succeeded closing the bulky door. "Come back another time, okay? I'll call you. Bye!" she shouted from the other side of the door.

"Wait!" Inuyasha yelled in vain. "I just want to say goodbye."

**o**

**o**

**o**

**o**

**o**

**+end of the chapter+**

**o**

**o**

AN: please do review. Thank you.


	9. Inaction

**Inaction**

****

"… _**I have not spoken for a long time, and together with my tongue**_

_**Love has moved away also …"**_

(taken from the poem 'One and a Half' by Ales Steger, translated by Peter Richards)

**&.Disclaimer: I don't own Inuyasha or the poem above.&**

**OoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoO**

Deciding on the mint floral eyelet silk dress with elasticated-cuffed balloon sleeves and contrast grosgrain empire band, which came to a self-tie on the back, to wear for the evening, she took it out of the rack in the walking closet. The deep V-neck of the dress complimented her long graceful neck and high bust attractively. Searching for the perfect sandals to go with the mid-thigh length dress, she opted for a pair of nude satin open-toe strappy slingbacks with 90mm high heels and a buckle fastening strap at ankle. She then rummaged the content of her jewelry box to find matching accessories. Putting on the gold long hammered loop earrings with chalky jade hanging stones and slipping the gold tone textured hoop bangle with a heart locket to her delicate wrist, she was finally ready for the night.

Checking her reflection from an ornate body mirror on the corner of the room, her eyes lighted at the end effect of the whole day primping. She ambled away to the living room with her puff-curled high ponytail bouncing merrily from left to right.

She sat down on a large-sized armchair and clasped her hands together on her lap in a solemn waiting-mode posture. The nude color make up, she had put on, accentuated her stunning features. Eyeing the clock at the wall impatiently, she started to chew on the cuticles of her fingers with the jade-colored nails.

When the clock struck seven, the doorbell rang. She got up and started to dash into the corridor without forgetting to snatch her handbag on the way, stopped before a mirror and checked her appearance, and only then did she finally open the door.

Standing before her, looking like one of the ideal runway-boys, it seemed that tonight he had shed his black business suit for a summer attire consisted of pale grey seersucker three button notched lapelled sportcoat with matching casual cotton pants, classic fit tan Irish linen sportshirt underneath, and shiny pale grey leather Oxford shoes. The whole outfit highlighted his short shaggy silver hair and sun-kissed skin, but most of all it contrastingly darkened the color of his eyes, making them more humane and irresistibly suave. Pale colors had never looked so good before on a man.

His beautiful amber eyes assessed the vision before him in appreciation, and that simple reaction made many hours of primping worth it.

"Are you ready?"

Kagome nodded. "Would you like to have something to drink before we go out?"

"No, thank you." He extended his hand towards her, and she gracefully accepted.

He led her to the car and opened the door for her.

"No Bugatti today?" she remarked as he entered the driver's seat of the black Lexus LS 460.

"No." He didn't think he could handle Bugatti and her tonight, making a mental note to keep his eyes on hers in conversation instead of on her visible, very appealing legs.

"So where are we going?"

"First we go eat."

After a couple of minutes waiting for a continuation, she realized that he was finished speaking. "And where is that, or is it still a surprise?"

He glanced at her for a moment, and then his eyes went back to the road. "It's in Ginza."

She had to get use to his one-sentence-answer, it seemed. With Sesshoumaru being not quite a conversational individual, Kagome decided to take up the role.

"Great weather we have today, isn't it? The night sky is clear and speckled with stars." Yes, definitely an icebreaker

But fortunately for her, Sesshoumaru did appreciate her effort, so he graced her with a reply. "You've seen a lot of starry nights before when you were living with your grandmother in the country, is that true?"

Kagome was surprised. "How did you know?"

"I did some background research, do you mind?" He stated it as if it was naturally acceptable to do so.

"No, of course not," she almost stuttered. "Did you find anything bad?" She looked like she was going to cry.

"No," Sesshoumaru answered her softly. "Look, you don't have to worry about Kahara Misako, okay?"

Kagome nodded, but the misery was slightly evident on her expression. "What else does it say about me?"

"You had to wait in the hospital for two weeks after your mother had abandoned you there. Then one day your grandmother, who had been given notice of your existence by a concerned nurse, came and took you away to live with her. You were a considerate child who possessed a sweet disposition, and the neighbors remembered you as an exceptionally beautiful child," he answered smilingly.

"Oh," Kagome blushed, "They did?"

"Yes, they also said you had an obsession with frogs as a child."

"Oh that," she blushed deeper, "That's not true. It's just something I picked up from a story when I was very little. You know, to start an orchestra of —," she was too embarrassed to continue.

"But I didn't cage them or something like that. I just kept them in my room and tried to take care of them the best I could until one day my grandmother found out about my pet collection and the slightly slimy interior of the room. I know," she said as she dared a glance at his expression, "It was disgusting, right? Well, I did learn my lesson after that."

"What punishment did your grandmother give you?" Sesshoumaru was curious.

"Oh, the usual; she locked me up in the cellar for five days without food and water," she answered casually. Glimpsing at his shocked expression, she burst out laughing. "I was just joking. We didn't even have a cellar."

"That was not very nice," Sesshoumaru commented, tightlipped, but in that moment he was actually biting his lips to hold a smile.

"I know, sorry," she said without a slightest bit of regret in her voice, "You see, my grandmother tended to be very strict with my mother. She regretted it of course the day her daughter ran away from home, and in a way she tried to make it up to me by spoiling me. She never raised her voice to me. She didn't even allow a slightest frown on her face in times when I had badly misbehaved."

"In the morning after the frog incident, she built me a small pond in the front yard so that I could put all my pets there. They of course scattered away all over the neighborhood after they had been set free instead of staying in the pond. I cried the whole day then. My grandmother felt so bad about it that she went from one neighbor to another to seek out all that frogs." Her eyes were becoming misty and her voice slightly nasal.

"She went home very late that night with her clothes all muddied. I was so angry and scared for her when she was finally at home that I locked myself in my room and refused to speak to her. I was such a spoiled brat back then. She should've been mad at me for putting her through so much trouble, but instead she stopped before my room and told me she was sorry that she couldn't find my frogs." She held the handbag in her lap in tight grips that the skin of her knuckles turned chalky white.

"I'm sorry," she suddenly said, "Some date, I make."

"No, it's not your fault. I shouldn't have brought up the subject."

"Okay then. Let's move on to another topic of conversation where we don't feel like killing ourselves." She smiled at him nervously.

"We're here." He stopped in front of a building.

The moment they stepped into the restaurant, they were greeted by a hostess who led them down the corridor into a separate room. The room was minimally furnished, yet there was a sense of meticulousness in the combination of the setting.

Both took their seats in front of each other, and a silent pause ensued.

"You were not how you describe yourself," Sesshoumaru finally commented.

"Oh?" Kagome raised her brow. "And how would you know what kind of person I was?"

"As far as I could gather, you were said to be a lovable child who had time and again attacks of strange antics." She blushed prettily. "But you weren't spoiled."

"They're neighbors. They didn't know how mean-tempered I was when I was at home," she argued.

"And it's not true about your grandmother having never lost her temper with you."

"They told you about that?" Kagome's eyes widened.

"More like they told the person, I had hired, about it."

"I can't believe they still remember it." Kagome shook her head, annoyed.

"Well, I would too if I was one of the search party that went looking for you when you were missing for two days."

She blushed deeper.

"Did your grandmother enjoy the fish you had caught for her on the side of the neighbor town's river?"

"They told me the fishes were bigger on the end stream of the river!" For a moment Kagome forgot herself and exclaimed childishly.

Sesshoumaru tried to hold back his smile and failed. "They told me that the moment your grandmother saw you walking towards her with a limp, she started to scream at you like a banshee for giving her a mortal scare."

Kagome smiled amidst her embarrassment. "That's true. I remembered being awfully scared of her anger."

"But you were happy?" Sesshoumaru shook his head, confused at her change of mood.

"Yes," she said vigorously, "Because after that we stopped being polite to each other, and I truly felt that she," her tone of voice went softer, "Finally accepted me."

"And as a child, you felt all this?"

"Yes, of course. A child is more sensitive than an adult. She or he will know if one accepted them or not. I mean, how were you when you were a child?"

Slightly taken aback by the turn of the question, Sesshoumaru tried to evade the question. "Today is all about you."

"But I'm not alone, am I? We're in this date together in case you haven't noticed," she pointed out teasingly.

"I'm not comfortable discussing about my past personal experience."

Kagome was still looking at him with big expectant eyes, waiting for him to continue.

"And that is all there is to it," he finished.

She looked disappointed for a moment, and then she whispered conspiratorially, "You're not playing the 'mysterious' card, are you?"

"I'm not playing any cards," he replied defensively.

"Then spill."

And he was still stubbornly silent.

"You were a silent child, a serious one. You always had a strong sense of justice but were smart enough not to get involved, not because you lacked of courage, but because you thought that it was a waste of time. Adults were intimidated by you, and children wouldn't befriend you. You acted of course like you didn't care, but actually all you wanted to do was to run around under the sun with the little girl that had bewitched you with her melodic, absolutely infectious laugh. And all in all you discovered love when you were seven."

Sesshoumaru was speechless.

Kagome was looking at him with amusement in her eyes. "Was I actually right?"

"Eight," he softly answered.

"Excuse me?"

"I was eight, not seven."

Her smile was frozen on her face. She felt a small twist of pain in her heart. Suddenly she didn't want to know anymore, yet she never wanted to speculate anymore as well. So amidst wanting to fully understand and to be ignorant, she dropped her smile and willingly took her chance. "You want to talk about it?"

"Why don't you tell me in your words how I was as a child, and I would correct you if you make a factual mistake."

She couldn't decide if he was being sarcastic or genuine.

"I'm sorry," she said a little heartbrokenly, "I didn't mean to be intrusive."

He felt like a jerk. "You weren't."

And right at that moment the food came. They then ate in silence. Kagome was thinking that this was all somehow just a mistake and if the night was going to end after they finished their dinner when he suddenly spoke up.

"You were right. I was like that when I was a child. I still probably am."

"And the little girl?" she asked tentatively, "Who was she?"

"My wife."

To say she was surprised was an understatement. "You have a wife?" she asked quietly, fearing for the worst.

"I had a wife."

She quickly looked at him, but he was evading her gaze.

"I'm sorry," she said genuinely, "What happened?"

"She was very sick."

"Were you married long?"

"She died in our first year of marriage, but I had known her for a long time."

"She was your best friend," she supplied understandingly, "The one who truly understood you."

"Yes, she was all that." He sighed heavily.

"What do you mostly remember about her?" she asked softly.

He shook his head vehemently. "It was a long time ago. I couldn't possibly —"

"Besides her laugh, what more do you remember?" she interrupted him gently.

He gave her a hard stare. "Everything, I remember everything about her."

"It wouldn't be so bad, you know, to talk about it. It might help," she suggested.

"Would it?" he frowningly asked, annoyed and furious. "Would it help me? Or do you just want to appease your curiosity?"

Kagome looked at him sadly. "I would never ask questions like that for such petty reasons."

"Really, you don't? Of course not, you rather speculate frivolously, I suppose," he commented sneeringly, "In the end, you're just one silly, spoiled girl."

She looked fiercely at him for a moment, and then her manner turned aloof. "This is a mistake." She stood up and grabbed her purse, and because she was very much hurt and couldn't decide at that moment if she was being silly or not, she put down thirty thousand yen () worth of bills on the table to pay for her dinner.

"Sit down, Higurashi," Sesshoumaru commanded threateningly.

"I've taken enough orders and threats in my life, Mr. Inoue. I may not be faultless, but I have never done anything to hurt others intentionally, and I expect others to behave the same. You can get defensive on your own, I don't care, but the thing is you had gone your way to investigate my life without asking me how I felt about it, bringing up personal matters that I might not wish to discuss but willingly did, and here you are insulting me for the things you yourself have inflicted upon me."

"And I am truly sorry about your wife. You should've known by now that I would never fake sympathy, or I don't know what qualities in me that's worth courting in your eyes. From this conversation, I could only gather that you probably had liked me for the wrong reason, so I'm going to set things straight from now on. This relationship is a mistake."

Twice she had walked out on him. But now instead of feeling desperate like the first time he had felt when she had threatened to disappear from his life, he felt angry.

'Mistake,' he mulled over the word again and again in his head. So this was what she thought of him, he reflected furiously. After all that he had done for her, she just regarded him as a stupid blunder.

Suddenly he heard soft tapping of rain from the little garden adjacent to their room. The sound grew louder, but he stubbornly stayed seated even though his inside was screaming at him to move. He had done enough chasing in his life. This was not how the course supposed to be. It wasn't supposed to be this difficult. She was supposed to remember immediately and they would fall back to the life he had once had with her.

The yen bills on the table caught his eyes. 'Silly girl,' he mustered. The bills were probably all she had had with her at the moment. She was going to catch a cold from walking in the rain.

He was still reluctant to catch up with her, ignoring that a relative long time had passed since she had left. Of course, she had been half-right about what she had said, and she certainly hadn't been a fake like he had rudely accused her to be. She had been brave, sweet, and kind, and most of all her justified anger was downright admirable. During the conversation, her expression had been attractively animated, and she was too damn delicious when she was angry. When he really thought about it, he realized that she had been fully right.

The cracking sound of the thunder jarred him into movement.

**OoOoO**

She cursed the rain and all the arrogant youkais in the world. Her anger made her forget about the cold, the furious rain, and her blinding vision of the road because of all the heavy spattering.

People were rushing on the street in search of a shelter. In their haste, one of them knocked Kagome off balance as she was walking in the opposite direction. She fell on her knees. The passerby immediately helped her up and asked her if she was alright. She nodded weakly, ignoring her trembling knee. Before he went off, heading to the shelter, he offered his help, but Kagome politely refused him and kept on walking ahead.

She shouldn't feel this miserable, she knew. After all she had known him only for a while, and for a while she had considered to take his outrageous offer of courtship. Everything had happened in a quite short period of time.

Yet time wasn't as essential as it seemed to be, and everything didn't have to happen for a reason. So she was lost once again in her life.

She halted before a taxi stop and searched for some money in her purse. Finding none, it came to her mind that the yen bills she had thrown on the table had been all the money she had brought with her. She cursed her luck and trampled further in the heavy rain until the treacherous heel of her slingback broke.

Kagome, now completely soaked, stared at her sandal stupidly. She wanted to cry, but she could only laugh helplessly. There went the twenty-five thousand yen sandals.

She looked to her right to find a shelter on the entryway of a dark building. She walked limply to the vacated spot. Watching the heavy onslaught of the rain against the pavement, she could now physically sense that she was terribly cold. Rubbing down her exposed frozen skin, she crouched down, hugging her bended legs.

**OoOoO**

Sesshoumaru cursed the rain and all the silly girls in the world, who couldn't resist a good storm off.

He should've found her hours ago if his nose wasn't rendered to ineffectiveness by this stupid rain. So he ran around the nearby streets, searching for invisible traces on the rain-washed pavement, which turned out to be as unproductive as it had sounded. Some streets, he had even gone over more than twice. He groaned helplessly; she was really making it difficult for him this time to find her.

He considered the idea of going to her apartment to check if she made it home despite the rain but quickly doubted the probability of the speculation.

Then he sighted her. Crouching down on the entry way of a building, her bony knees protruding vulnerably from her position, her head buried in the crook of her elbow, all in all it made his anger lessen a bit, but only a bit.

"Didn't you see me going up and down this street for the past hour!?" He seldom lost his temper over such trivialities. He suddenly knew how Kagome's grandmother had had to feel the day Kagome had been reported missing.

Kagome looked up sleepily. Her face was pasty, and the flush of her lips was, though endearing, dangerously indicating a high temperature.

He was in front of her in a flash. "Are you alright?" he asked worriedly as he put the palm of his hand against her temple. "You're burning up!" he registered in alarm.

Kagome fended off his hand weakly. "Leave me alone," she warned drowsily.

Ignoring her, Sesshoumaru gathered her form in his arms. "I'll get you home now, okay, sweetheart?" The endearment just rolled off his tongue before he could stop it.

But Kagome seemed to be past hearing him in her condition as she whimpered in his arms. "I have no home," she said pitifully.

"Your home's with me," he replied resolutely.

She nodded and snuggled closer against his chest. Holding her in his arm, he tried his best to shield her from the rain. Finally arriving at his car, he transferred her to the passenger seat and lowered the seat down for her. He went around the car and climbed on his seat.

As he tucked away a stray lock from her temple, he found that his hands seemed reluctant to leave her. Even though he knew that he had to rush back home and get her in the dry, he couldn't fight the urge to watch her. Then she whimpered, and he lost it. He leaned towards her and first kissed her temple, the heated skin warming his lips. He moved down and finally captured her soft, burning lips. Never in his life had he felt so alive like he did now.

**OoOoO**

He arrived before his manor house shortly after. The gate opened automatically and he drove through the lane leading to the house.

He entered the house carrying her in his arms. Kaede hastened to approach him.

"Is there something wrong!?" she asked him in alarm. "Who is this girl, Sesshoumaru-sama? Is she alright?"

Sesshoumaru bared Kagome's face towards his housekeeper. She inhaled sharply.

"It's she," she registered with an almost sad tone. "Give her to me. I'll take care of her," she pried Kagome from his hold gently.

Sesshoumaru hesitated for a moment, but the aged housekeeper had already transferred his burden in her support. An unfamiliar sense of emptiness crept inside him to have her taken away from him.

"She has a high temperature. I'm going to get her out of these wet clothes and prepare a herbed bath for her. You should change your clothes as well, Sesshoumaru-sama. I will send her to you the moment she gains her consciousness."

She then disappeared around the corner, taking Kagome with her. He looked briefly after them and then went to his room to take a shower and change into fresh clothing.

Walking up and down in his room impatiently, he pondered of his next move as he waited for Kagome to be returned to him. Should he apologize first? Or should he just conduct himself as usual as if nothing had happened? He decided for the latter.

Two hours had passed since he last saw her. He wondered what had taken so long, so he went out of his room in search for her. He detected her scent coming from a guest room down the hall along with the scent of his old housekeeper. He could hear a soft humming of an old nursery song from the room.

He opened the door quietly and found a bathed and dried Kagome, dressed in his pajamas, sleeping peacefully in the bed. Kaede was running her fingers against Kagome's warm temple, smoothing her tangled pony.

"So did it all go as he planned?" asked Kaede softly, acknowledging his silent presence.

Sesshoumaru raised his brow in curiosity. "Do you know who she is?"

Kaede smiled softly. "I know that Inuyasha held a deep fondness for this girl when I first met the both of them. That silly boy …" She shook her head in pity.

"It didn't," Sesshoumaru gave her his late answer.

"I suppose not. He wasn't certainly planning of falling for her."

A twist of jealous emotion entered his heart. "But he wasn't."

"Come now, Sesshoumaru-sama. You used to be one of the most perceptive people I've ever known, inheriting the trait from your father."

"I don't need anyone to judge me, old woman." He stepped closer to the side of the bed, focusing solely on Kagome.

"Poor girl …" Kaede turned to him and looked up pleadingly. "You will be good to her, won't you, if she'll have you?"

Sesshoumaru ignored her and proceeded to retrieve Kagome into his arms.

"She was awakened when I dried her hair and called me Obaa-chan," she commented in a sad tone, effectively stopping Sesshoumaru on his track. "Does she still have anyone in this world, Sesshoumaru-sama?"

"She has me. I will be all she would ever need," he answered confidently.

**OoOoO**

Sesshoumaru laid her down gently on his bed. Her soft-layered waist length hair spread beautifully on the pillow framing her adorable features. Her long thick lashes fluttered softly above her cheeks as she mumbled incomprehensibly in her sleep. He sat beside her on the bed and contented himself with watching her sleep. He ran a finger across her porcelain-smooth cheek, tracing the delicate structure of her jaw, following the line of her high eyebrows. His finger felt the softness of her flushed full lips, lingered there for a moment, and then continued down to caress the skin of her throat, fitting the tip of his finger in the hollow at the base of her neck.

She snuggled deeply into the pillow, rubbing her left cheek against the soft material; an action that made the loose collar of the pajama shifted, exposing her right shoulder. Sesshoumaru inhaled sharply. His hand was burning against her skin. She was just so warm and inviting. He leaned forward and allowed himself to breathe her nearness, hear the rhythm of her pulse. Suddenly her eyes fluttered open.

She looked at him in confusion; her mind was trying to grasp the current situation. She then remembered what had happened. Narrowing her eyes at him, she tried weakly to get up from the bed only to have him pinning her back to the bed.

"Don't get up yet," he told her gently.

"Get away from me," she hissed.

He sighed. "I'm sorry."

She shook her head. "No, you're not."

"You were right. I had no right to be defensive, not when I had you investigated without your knowledge."

She was still unyielding against him. "You succeeded today in making me feel something that I thought I'd never feel again. She used to throw it in my face, you know, about me being inferior and a fake." Her eyes watered, and the tip of her nose was slightly flushed.

"Forgive me," he whispered helplessly, not knowing what to do if she wouldn't.

She shook her head and struggled frantically under him. He actually ran out of ideas of persuasion, so he did the only thing that he wanted to do at the moment and closed his lips on hers.

He kissed her hard, willing her with all his might to yield, but she held her lips closed against him, fighting the onslaught of the forced intimacy. Her hands came up to push him off her, but he caught them in one hand and held them stretched above her head. She gasped in indignation, and he, in turn, took his chance and slipped his tongue inside her mouth. Furious by his stealth, she bit it.

He withdrew from her in surprise, releasing both of her hands. She sat up on the bed abruptly. She herself was surprised of what she just did.

"Oh, my god! Are you alright!?" she asked him in concern.

He felt his tongue with his finger and stared at the blood on the tip of the finger.

"I'm sorry!" she cried guiltily. She shifted closer towards him, cupping his face in her hands. "Here, let me see," she coaxed him softly to allow her examine his tongue.

She rose up slightly to have a better angle at inspecting the interior of his mouth. Suddenly he chuckled, stopping her in motion.

With one hand snaking around her waist and another going to the back of her neck, he pulled her tightly against him until her nose was touching his. "You can make it up to me," he whispered huskily against her lips and kissed her.

And she did exactly that. Her tongue entered his lips and gently lapped at the mistreated spot, stoking the fire within him. He drew her yet closer, deepening the kiss, his hand slowly lifting the hem of the pajama-shirt, running the palm of his hand over the slope of her lower back. She moaned against his lips, and that needy whimper aroused him more than anything as he trailed kisses down her neck.

The warmth of her skin reminded him of her fever, so he reluctantly disentangled himself and pushed her back to the bed. She gazed at him in confusion; an expression that enticed him to lean down and capture her lips in a soft kiss. He then kissed both her eyes and the tip of her nose and whispered against her lips. "Sleep, you need to rest."

He stayed awake that night, watching her sleep. Unconsciously he reverted back to his dark self by stifling his base desires. Epiphanies never meant much to him; he usually ignored things that happened out of his control. In truth, he was sadly irredeemable.

**o**

**o**

**o**

**o**

**o**

**+end of the chapter+**

**o**

**o**

() circa three hundred dollars (I think)

AN: please do review, Thank you.


End file.
